Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Translation Theories
Contextualizing
Translation Theories:
Aspects of ArabicEnglish
Interlingual Communication
By
CONTENTS
vi
Contents
vii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
BCE
CE
SL
SLC
ST
TL
TLC
TT
Although the book is an integrated whole, it is possible for the user to pick
out individual chapters for reading or for discussion as each chapter
highlights a particular aspect of translation activity. Therefore, the users
needs may determine whether to examine the entire book in search of a
holistic picture of the process of translation or, alternatively, to select
individual chapters that respond to concerns relating to a specific area such
as, for example, the pragmatic aspects of translation. There are two key
notations that are employed when discussing translational data in this
work: bold type, which is used to highlight study items in excerpts and
square brackets, which are used to enclose literal translation. Literal
translation is intended for users who do not know Arabic; it gives them a
rough picture of lexicalization and textuality in Arabic discourse, though
not extending to all such micro grammatical features as categories of
number, gender, case, and so on.
PREFACE
SAID FAIQ
The market does not need yet another book on translation theory and
didactics, but it desperately needs this book. The market is replete with
books that claim to translation-teach-it-all and with titles that range from
the humble (introduction to, thinking, doing, translation) to the almost
self-help-style books (how to become a translator in X number of easy
steps, or the A to Z of translation), etc. These books do cover aspects of
translation and translating, but do not fully provide something that brings
theory and practice together in an informed and comprehensive fashion.
Translation, as Lefevere (1992) appropriately argues, is process, product
and reception. Translation refers to the product and reception, while
translating refers to the process. Furthermore, translation needs to be
framed as representation, transmission and transculturation (Tymoczko
2007). If translation covers all these variables, it should then be seen
through the prism of a friendly and comprehensive theory married to good
practice. This book provides theory in a balanced manner with toolkits
(derived from presented theories) to tackle translation problems. It is based
on the axiom that the two fundamental components of translation are
culture and language, and that the trick in examining translation and
translating lies in bringing together theory and practice in an interactive
fashion.
Because it brings the two together, translation is by necessity a multifaceted, multi-problematic process with different manifestations,
realizations and ramifications. Further, translation is often seen as
transcreation and is carried out within the constraints of the discourse of its
culture (the translating culture). Ignoring this tenet is tantamount to
ignoring culture in translation and vice versa. So, translation plays an
important role in the identification and negotiation of cultural identity,
similarity and difference as well as the dynamics of intercultural
encounters through the interlingual interface (Faiq 2010).
xi
CHAPTER ONE
HISTORICAL SURVEY
1.1 Overview
To drive a car, for instance, does not require you to understand how the
engine of the car works, but when you have some basic knowledge of such
a mechanism, you will definitely drive your car with greater selfconfidence, free from worry and fear. The same holds true for translation
theories. You do not need to know translation theories in order to translate;
however, acquiring a solid foundation in translation theory will enable you
to produce a text reflecting the authors intention, maintaining the texttype focus and living up to the target-readers expectations. In this chapter
we will introduce in brief those important translation theories that have
had the greatest influence on the development of translation studies
afterwards.
Chapter One
conventions of usage. . . . Therefore, I did not have to make a word-forword translation but rather a translation that reflects the general stylistic
features . . . and the meaning . . . of foreign words. (Cicero printed in
Schulte and Biguenet 1992: 12)
Cicero and Horace (first century BCE) were the first theorists who made a
distinction between word-for-word translation and sense-for-sense
translation. Their comments on translation practice influenced the
following generations of translation down to the twentieth century. Five
centuries later, St Jerome adopted Cicero and Horaces position on the
occasion of his Latin translation of the Greek Septuagint, in his letter to
Pammachius on the best method of translating:
Now I not only admit but freely announce that in translating from Greek
except of course in the case of the Holy Scripture, where even the syntax
contains a mystery I render not word-for-word, but sense-for-sense. (St
Jerome cited in Robinson 1997, 25)
Although his was not an excellent translation, it is still the official Latin
translation of the Bible (cf. Bassnett and Lefevere 1990, 15). His
approach to translating the Greek Septuagint Bible into Latin would
affect later translations of the scriptures (Munday 2001/2008, 7). It was
not long before the Romans tilted the scale of balance towards the TL; they
considered the original translation as a source of inspiration for the creation
of new expressions in ones own language (Friedrich 1965/1992, 13).
Historical Survey
Major scientist translators of that period, such as Ibn Ishq, Ibn al-Batrq,
Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Ibn Sn (Avicenna), and Farb, among others,
dominated the scene of scholarship and translation. In particular, Hunayn
Ibn Ishq and Yahy Ibn al-Batrq, who translated a large number of
Greek works, were best known for the profession of translation. Here
came up again the issue of the two translation methods of word-for-word
or sense-for-sense translation. While the translations of Ibn Ishq tended to
be fluent in Arabic (translating sense-for-sense), those of Ibn al-Batrq
followed the original text more literally and borrowed extensively from
Greek (for more details, see Baker and Malmkjr 1998; Almanna 2014).
However, with the Arabs establishing firm grounds in various domains of
scholarship, thanks to the translation movement, and with the Arabic
language becoming an international lingua franca (the way English is
nowadays), the need for translation started to wane and the translation
movement finally came to an end. In this regard, Gutas (1998, 152)
comments:
The translation movement stopped or came to an end because the Arabic
philosophical and scientific enterprise which had created the need for it
from the very beginning became autonomous.
Chapter One
Historical Survey
Chapter One
greatest wrong which can be done to the memory and reputation of the
dead (ibid., 20). He was in favour of the middle path, that of paraphrase.
Drydens attitude in favour of paraphrase was not static, but rather it
underwent a movement from the slight preference for the conservation of
ideas which he displayed in The Preface to Ovids Epistles (1680),
through his revaluation of this opinion in the Prefaces to his poems from
Sylvae (1685), to his reversal of it in his Discourse concerning Satire
(1693) (Osullivan Jr 1980, 144). Later on, in The Dedication of the
Aeneis (1697), he tilted the scale towards literalness situating himself
between metaphrase and paraphrase. Drydens justification for such a
change was that he had come to believe that a translator must try to
recreate the originals style as closely as possible (ibid., 26):
On the whole matter, I thought fit to steer betwixt the two extremes of
paraphrase and literal translation; to keep as near my author as I could,
without losing all his graces, the most eminent of which are the beauty of
his words. (Dryden 1697 printed in Osullivan Jr 1980, 26)
Historical Survey
Examining Tytlers principles, in particular the first two, one can readily
observe that they represent, albeit indirectly, the age-old debate of the
nature of translation: whether the translator had to opt for word-for-word
translation or sense-for-sense translation. While the first principle requires
translators to be faithful to the content of the original text, the second
principle encourages translators to be free from linguistic constraints
involving form and denotation in favour of a more functional perspective
(Farghal 2010, 91). In his third principle, Tytler is developing the concepts
of fluency (see Venuti 1995, 6869), naturalness (discussed later by
Nida 1964) and domestication (discussed first by Schleiermacher (see
below) and later by Venuti 1995; 1998; 2004).
In describing a good translation, Tytler (1978, 15) stated that it is the
translation in which the merit of the original work is so completely
transfused into another language, as to be as distinctly apprehended, and as
strongly felt, by a native of the country to which that language belongs
(Tytler cited in Venuti 1995, 68). Although Tytler held that translators had
to clarify obscurities in the original by way of omission or addition, he
stood against paraphrase, which was supported by Dryden (see above)
holding that the concept of paraphrase had led to exaggeratedly loose
translations (Bassnett 1980, 69).
Chapter One
interpretations, and that can be traced back to the Septuagint (Kelly 1979,
35). In the eighteenth century, the concept of copying was slightly
modified to mean a recreation in terms of the other language (ibid.) the
translators duty was to create the spirit of the ST for the reader of the
time (Munday 2001/2008, 28).
With the rise of hermeneutic theories, translation in the nineteenth century
came to be conceived as an interpretive recreation of the text (Kelly
1979, 34). However, this does not rule out the existence of the other school
of translation theory that considered translation as being a transmission of
data (ibid.). The theologian and translator Friedrich Schleiermacher,
considered the founder of modern hermeneutics, took the discussion a step
further in his essay of 1813 entitled On the Different Methods of
Translating in which he focused on the methodologies of translations,
rather than illuminating the nature of the translation process (Schulte
and Biguenet 1992, 6). Schleiermacher argued that a translator either . . .
leaves the writer alone as much as possible and moves the reader towards
the writer, or he leaves the reader alone as much as possible and moves the
writer towards the reader. He further added: Both paths are so
completely different from one another that one of them must definitely be
adhered to as strictly as possible, since a highly unreliable result would
emerge from mixing them, and it is likely that author and reader would not
come together at all (Schleiermacher 1813/1992, 4142).
In the Arab world, and in Egypt in particular, a succession of schools was
established in the 1820s for both the army and navy branches of the armed
services. In addition to the purely military schools, a number of civilian
arts and sciences schools were started up, most of which had some military
aspect in their administration. The largest was the medical school, founded
on the suggestion of the French physician Clot, and just a year after his
arrival in 1825 the building was completed. Schools of veterinary science,
agriculture, pharmaceutics, mineralogy, engineering, and other subjects
followed in the 1820s and 1830s. Clot also played a part in reforming the
primary and secondary school systems (for more details, see Baker and
Malmkjr 1998, 323324).
During this time, Muhammad Ali Pasha began sending students abroad,
particularly to France where some of them learned specific skills
individually, while others were sent to Paris in a series of education
missions. It was not long before those students became experts in French
and through their stay abroad acquired Western techniques and adopted
Historical Survey
the Western style of learning. Upon their return, they began translating
significant texts into Turkish and Arabic, teaching in the new schools, and
translating what the foreign experts were teaching. During that time,
Rifah al-Tahtw rose to prominence as a translator as well as for the
authorship of Takhlis Al-Ibriz fi Talkhis Bariz, a famous account of his
journey. A figure of importance in the revival of the Arabic language and
literature, known as Nahda, al-Tahtw became the second director of what
began as the School of Translation and was in 1837 subsequently renamed
the School of Languages. Despite its title, this was more of a translation
bureau than a language school.
The establishment of these new schools required textbooks, which became
the chief product of the new government printing press set up in Bulq, the
port of Cairo, in 1822. This was the first permanent press in Egypt, second
only to the short-lived press brought by the French expedition (17981801)
that was removed upon French withdrawal. With his expedition Napoleon
brought scientists and savants in all fields, along with a printer that could
type in Arabic, Greek and French. The first translation made by the French
mission from French into Arabic was Napoleons proclamation addressing
the Egyptians.
10
Chapter One
Translation Studies
PureApplied
TheoreticalDescriptive
General
PartialProductProcessFunctionTranslatorTranslationTranslation
Oriented OrientedOrientedTrainingAidsCriticism
MediumAreaRankTexttypeTimeProblem
restrictedrestrictedrestrictedrestrictedrestrictedrestricted
Holmess basic map of Translation Studies (Toury 1995, 10)
Historical Survey
11
Newmark (1981; 1988) who give more credit to formal equivalence than
Nida by distinguishing between correspondence and equivalence and
between semantic and communicative translation, respectively. These
linguistically-informed translation dichotomies can be summarized in the
diagram below:
Direct vs Oblique Translation
(Vinay and Darbelnet 1958)
Correspondence vs Equivalence
(Koller 1979)
12
Chapter One
Historical Survey
13
TRANSLATOR
AUTHOR
AUDIENCE
14
Chapter One
1.10 Conclusion
This chapter has surveyed the different theories of translation from Cicero
and Horace (first century BCE) up to contemporary translation theories.
By drawing on different theoretical orientations in translation studies, the
following chapters in this book aim to show that the end translation
product will never assume a pure form, embracing wholly one theoretical
orientation. For example, the strategy of foreignization might be adopted
as a global strategy in translating a ST; however, the actual production of
the TT will have to involve cases where the strategy of domestication
presents itself as a must, in order to avoid some communication
breakdowns. One can compare translation dichotomies or orientations to
the relationship between the phatic and referential elements of language,
where one or the other will show some dominance without excluding the
other function. The same is true in translation activity, where one
orientation will show dominance while leaving some room for others. The
main objective of this volume is to spell out the tenets relating to different
translation theories in an attempt to form a multi-faceted holistic picture,
which will help in the perfecting of translators work. The competent
translator is not expected to restrict himself/herself to one translation
orientation and/or paradigm, but rather travel among them in search of
informed solutions to problems. In this spirit, Pym (2010, 166) concludes:
When theorizing, when developing your own translation theory, first
identify a problem a situation of doubt requiring action, or a question in
need of an answer. Then go in search of ideas that can help you work on
that problem. There is no need to start in any one paradigm, and certainly
no need to belong to one.
CHAPTER TWO
TRANSLATION PARAMETERS
AND CONSTRAINTS
2.1 Overview
This chapter addresses itself to the macro-parameters and constraints that
need to be considered at the pre-translation stage in a translation project. It
aims to show that there usually exists a tug of war between several
theoretically polar options at the macro level although they become more
congruent and dynamic during the actual process of translation. The main
emphasis in this chapter, therefore, is to bring out the relevance of macro
issues such as culture, (master) discourse, genre, ideology, norms, and so
on, prior to actual translation activity. Each section in this chapter will
show how a macro parameter or constraint can have significant bearings
on the work of translators. Many illustrative examples are employed to
drive home the importance of such pre-translation issues.
When deciding their global strategy, translators usually ask themselves a
number of questions to identify the text type, genre, the intended
readership of the TT, the translation purpose, and the function of the TT,
among other things, with a view to forming a global strategy before
embarking on the actual act of translating. In this regard, Hatim and
Mason (1997, 11) remark: Translators choices are constrained by the
brief for the job which they have to perform, including the purpose and
status of the translation and the likely readership and so on. Parallel to
these, the publishers attitude, or the agencys policy, the presence of the
ST in a bilingual edition, and the relationship between the source and
target cultures (self and other) are often of equal influence in deciding the
appropriateness of a particular global strategy. Venuti (2000, 468)
comments:
Translation never communicates in an untroubled fashion because the
translator negotiates the linguistic and cultural differences of the foreign
text by reducing them and supplying another set of differences, basically
16
Chapter Two
domestic, drawn from the receiving language and culture to enable the
foreign to be received there.
17
and target) influences, among other factors (see below), every single
aspect of the translation process, starting from selecting the ST for
translation up to presenting it to the target reader. As far as the relationship
between the source culture and target culture is concerned, it is worth
noting that the relationship is not always equal, but rather a target culture,
as Robyns (1994, 409420) concludes, may take one of the following
positions with regard to the source culture:
1. Imperialist, i.e. the target culture encourages transporting foreign
materials from the source culture, provided that the transported
materials are naturalized in accordance with the established systems of
the target culture and its norms and conventions;
2. Defensive, i.e. the target culture regards the source culture as a threat
to its identity, thereby avoiding any influence the target culture might
exercise;
3. Trans-discursive, i.e. the two cultures see each other equally; or
4. Defective, i.e. the target culture looks at the source culture as a
capable culture that can compensate for target cultural deficiencies.
Consequently, whatever the relationship between the interfacing cultures
is, be it imperialist, defensive, trans-discursive, or defective, there will be
some sort of influence on the translator prior to embarking on the actual
act of translating. However, the influence may well reach its peak when
the relationship is imperialist whereby the target culture adopts a colonial
approach in transporting the foreign materials (Almanna 2014, 98). Such
an imperialist relationship between the source and the target cultures has
encouraged the translation of literary works that are in line with the
existing stereotypical representations conjured up in the target readers
minds towards the original cultures regardless of the literary quality of the
works (ibid.). That is why, for example, the West is so attracted to Arabic
literary works that are of a controversial nature in their source culture
usually works which deal with blasphemy, feminist concepts, human
rights, and so on which readily feed into the target cultures stereotypical
images of the source culture. Historically, one can mention the classic
Arabic work The Thousand and One Nights, which has received a
remarkable international status through translation into tens of languages
but has remained a marginal work in its source culture. You can hardly
find this work as part of the syllabus in any Arabic department at an Arab
university, whereas it enjoys an outstanding presence in Western academic
activity relating to Arabic literature.
18
Chapter Two
The traditional Western discourse in general and the more recent AngloAmerican discourse in particular have been hostile to Arab-Islamic culture.
For example, Barber (1995, 5363) envisions two parallel futures for our
globe: a McWorld informed by modernity, science and technology
representing the West and a McTripe dominated by backwardness and
tribal/sectarian violence representing the East (especially Arab-Muslim
cultures). Also, a quick look at English media discourse clearly points to
the adoption of a master discourse whose lexicon is based on stereotypical
images. Expressions such as terrorism, fundamentalism, Islamists,
Muslim militants, jihad, and so on, have become Western media buzz
words employed when referring to Arabs and Muslims, especially after the
9/11 attacks. This negative image reached a stage that required politicians
of the highest level to interfere in an attempt to soften the negative
19
20
Chapter Two
various levels, there are less influential discourses that call for the
avoidance of stereotypical images and are critical of domestic as well as
foreign political practice. Consider what Kari A. Owen writes on 20 Sept.
2001 (Yenigun 2004, 59):
If anything, Osama bin Laden exposed the lies of American idealism and
values of freedom, self-determination, pursuit of democracy and justice
around the world, and brought to light a bankrupt foreign policy, and lack
of respect for human rights and the rule of law.
21
Here, it is the generic conventions that could possibly give rise to such
unidiomatic renderings as male spouse and female spouse, which are
not often used in other genres. However, legislative writings still retain
particular remarkable features that distinguish them from other genres,
such as the length of sentences, the complex structures, the use of archaic
expressions, the use of a lexical item and its synonym, the use of a
particular preposition and its synonym, the dearth of punctuation marks,
and so on (cf. Crystal and Davy 1969; Almanna 2005).
Another example that involves generic constraints is reporting events in
Arabic and English. In the Arabic genre, it is customary to start the news
segment with the aim of the event being reported rather than the event
itself. In English, by contrast, the event itself is given priority. In this way,
the beginning of a news report such as the following:
(3)
. . .
[With the aim of strengthening the relationship between scientific research
and needs of the local community, Kuwait University organized yesterday
a public seminar in which there were many experts and it was attended by
a large number of people and it concentrated on several issues
including . . .]
might well be rendered in English as:
(4) Kuwait University organized yesterday a public seminar aiming at
strengthening the relationship between scientific research and the local
communitys needs. Several experts spoke at the seminar which drew a
large audience. The seminar focused on several issues including . . .
Chapter Two
22
(7)
23
24
Chapter Two
Here, the translation refers to the woman as if in prison and not allowed to
go out unless she has permission from her master/husband. Such a
discoursal restructuring adds a characteristic that would invoke in the mind
of the target reader images of oppression and slavery practiced on women
in the Arab world (cf. Abuelmatti 2005, 210). This discoursal
manipulation may be enthusiastically welcomed by the Western
publisher/reader as it reinforces the existing stereotypical representations
conjured up in the mind of the Western readers towards the Arab/Islamic
world on the one hand, and it accords well with the master discourse of
translating from Arabic into English, on the other. In this regard,
Abuelmatti (2005, 181) comments:
Translation traffic from Arabic, thus, creates a set of characters and
ideologies organized around the contrast between the West (Self) and East
(Other) in which the exotic Orient is represented in a table of accessible
information, and so, a typical cultural product of Western dominance
(Aydin 1994). The ideology of cultural globalization today subjugates the
Arab/Islamic world to translation projects and strategies that are
suppressive and which eventually result in perverted images.
As can be seen here, the translator has altered the discourse of the author
through deletion, addition, and manipulation, thus presenting an objective
author who holds positive attitudes towards Islam.
25
Hatim and Mason (1990) hold that these three types of constraints, namely
text, genre, and discourse, are of a semiotic nature. Mason (1994, 2334)
points out their importance in:
governing the production and reception of texts and the rhetorical
conventions of the cultural communities of source and target language. . . .
As semiotic categories, these are culture-specific in the sense that different
cultural communities may have evolved their own intertextual conventions
governing what constitutes a given genre and discourse, or text.
In a similar vein, Hatim (1997a, 4) stresses that text, genre and discourse:
relay vital signals which, through some form of intertextuality, link a given
utterance with what [it] basically reminds us of, be this some social
occasion conventionally enshrined in language (a genre structure), some
attitudinal statement (a discoursal element) or some rhetorical purpose (a
textual matter).
Interestingly enough, the mere rendition of the title of a book may reveal
the discourse the translator has settled for throughout his whole translation.
Witness how Abdel-Sabours (1999) translation of Frinklestones (1996)
book title Anwar Sadat: Visionary who dared into : [Sadat:
The Illusion of Challenge] heralds a discourse of a negative nature about
Sadat rather than a positive one as espoused by the original. That is, the
original title presents Sadat as a visionary, whereas the translation
portrays him as a deluded leader, a discourse which permeates the
translation throughout. The question here is: What made the translator take
such a decision? Most likely, he wanted to rub shoulders with his Arab
readers who, at that time, generally held a negative stance towards Sadat,
who betrayed his brethren Arab leaders by signing singly the Camp David
Peace Treaty with Israel.
26
Chapter Two
Skopos theory (cf. Nord 1997, 2728; also discussed in Hatim 2001, 74),
there are three types of purpose:
a) The general purpose, i.e. the purpose of the translator in translating the
text the translators motivation, such as gaining reputation, earning a
living, and so on;
b) The communicative purpose, i.e. the purpose of the TT for
persuading, instructing or just for information;
c) The purpose of the translation strategy, i.e. why a certain strategy is
adopted while others are excluded.
The general rules of Skopos theory can be summarized as follows:
1. It is the skopos of the translation that determines the shape of the
translation. Knowing the purpose behind the translation enables the
translator to opt for a certain global strategy, thereby excluding other
available strategies;
2. There should be intertextual coherence or fidelity between the TT
and the ST as long as the TT is an offer of information about an
existing offer of information, i.e. the ST and TT should be
intertextually coherent with each other. The TT is judged to be
intertextually coherent to the extent that there is consistency between
the intentionality of the source text producer, the way this is interpreted,
and the way it is reexpressed with target language Hatim (2001, 756);
3. The third rule addresses the integrity of the TT itself, i.e. the TT must
be intratextually coherent.
It follows that each of the skopos rules discussed above exerts certain
constraints on the translator. Firstly, adopting a global strategy will
undoubtedly affect the local strategies taken by the translator, that is,
reasoned decisions, such as addition, omission, deviation, lexical choice,
maintaining or ignoring some stylistic features, reflecting or changing the
register concerning specific problems of grammar, punctuation, syntax,
style, comprehension and accuracy. Secondly, as long as the relationship
between the ST and the TT is considered, the fidelity rule is related, to a
considerable extent, to the accuracy of the translation or the relation
norm (cf. Chesterman 1997/2000). Thirdly, the rule of the integrity of the
TT brings to the fore notions such as acceptability, accessibility and
naturalness (see below).
Following the tenets of Skopos theory, the translator needs to be aware of
the fact that there are cases of translation activity which usually call for
localizing texts in translation or what House (1977/1981/1997) calls
27
28
Chapter Two
29
that the target reader would not feel a gap in the translation but,
nonetheless, a significant aspect of the original utterance is lost.
Catering for the needs of the target reader should always be an important
factor in translation activity. Some translators, however, may be
overridden by the wording of the ST, while others may be sensitive to the
expectations of their target readers. Below are contexts that contrast in this
respect.
(15) The Arabic proverb [The eye is sighted and the
hand is short] is rendered in two different contexts as The eye sees
far but the hand is short' and 'Sight is long but our hand is short.
(Peter Therouxs (1993) translation of AbdelRahman Munifs novel
1992 : Cities of Salt: Variations on Day and
Night).
: (16)
. [Then he said while throwing the hashish in her lap:
This brand is not smoked in our alley except for the Chief and the slave
of God, madam]
(17) Ali said humbly:
No one in the alley smokes this brand except for the Chief and
yours truly. (Philip Stewarts (1981) translation of Najeeb
Mahfouzs (1959) novel Children of Gebelawi).
Examining the two contexts above, one can readily observe that Theroux
has opted for literal translation of the Arabic proverb, thus mystifying the
message and making it very difficult for the target reader to understand
what is going on. Attending to the needs of his readers would have yielded
something like The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak or the reach
falls short of the desires. By contrast, Stewart has attended to his readers
expectations by rendering the culture-bound expression as yours
truly instead of the literal and the slave of God, which would not make
sense to the target reader in this context.
30
Chapter Two
31
32
Chapter Two
This accords well with the hybrid nature of texts. Any text type can
sometimes utilize the formats of other texts. Yet, its type is not determined
according to the formats borrowed from the other text type, but is rather
determined by the texts over-all function and super-ordinate goal
(Bayar 2007, 143144).
In terms of content-based text typologies, one can readily see that the
rendering of figurative language in literary works can be substantially
different from their treatment in non-literary texts. While figurative
language is considered part and parcel of literary discourse where form
and function become intertwined, its presence may be regarded as
cosmetic in nature in non-literary discourse. For example, Arabic
newspaper editorials tend to employ highly flowery language mainly for
effect. In many cases, therefore, such flowery language can be reduced to
its propositional content without jeopardizing its argumentative
It can be readily seen that the translator has successfully preserved the
metaphorical quality of the Arabic text by rendering it metaphorically in
the TT (boldfaced by us). Doing away with the metaphor by explicitly
referring to his grandfathers sexual potency would have betrayed the
nature of literary language and lessened the aesthetics of the text.
33
Consequently, text type here imposes some constraints that the translator
needs to be aware of.
Moreover, looking at discourse from a text-typological focus (Hatim and
Mason 1990; Hatim 1997a) will impose different types of constraints on
the translator. For example, the same word would be interpreted
differently depending on the text-typological focus. Witness how the verb
flow should be rendered differently in a tone-setter of an argumentative
text than in a scene-setter of an expository text as below: (for more details,
see Hatim 1997a)
(19) Much credit flows to the State of Israel . . . (from a Guardian
editorial)
. . . (20)
[A stream of praise flows to the state of Israel]
(21) Several consequences flow from this proposal . . . (from Brown 1984)
. . . (22)
[There follow from this suggestion many results]
34
Chapter Two
Toury and Hermans were the first to seriously bring the concept of norm
to the fore in translation studies. Norms, according to Toury (1980, 51),
are the translation of general values or ideas shared by a certain
community as to what is right and wrong, adequate and inadequate into
specific performance-instructions appropriate for and applicable to
specific situations. Norms therefore are social regulation mechanisms
which make certain choices and decisions by the translator more likely
than others (Hermans 1998, 156). As such, norms consist of two main
aspects: (1) a directive aspect, which lays pressure on people to behave
in a certain way, and (2) a content aspect, which is an intersubjective
notion of correctness, i.e. what is appropriate and correct and what is not
in certain situations (Hermans 1998, 156).
Toury (1995, 5659) talks of three types of norms:
1. Initial norms which refer to the general choices made by the
translators when they make decisions to either pay attention to the
norms of the SL, guaranteeing the adequacy, or to take into account the
norms of the TT, achieving the acceptability of the ST in the TL.
2. Preliminary norms which refer to the translation policy and
directness of translation. Translation policy covers the factors that
determine the selection of the ST for translation. Directness of
translation also deals with the question of whether the translation is
directly from the SL or through another language.
3. Operational norms which cover both matricial norms, referring to
the completeness of the TT, thereby questioning issues such as
omission, addition, relocation, etc. and textual-linguistic norms that
relate to the linguistic material, such as lexical items, phrases, and
stylistic features.
More recently, Chesterman (1997/2000, 6869) discusses four translation
norms:
1. Expectancy norm, i.e. the translator has to take into account the TL
grammaticality, acceptability, appropriateness, and so on in a certain
text type;
2. Accountability norm, i.e. the translator should make sure of tricky
points and confusing matters by double checking the draft of a
translation, asking professionals [for] their opinion and so on;
3. Relation norm, i.e. the relationship between ST elements and TT
elements; and
35
36
Chapter Two
According to norm theory, when dealing with the text at hand, translators
either focus on the SL and its norms or on the TT and its norms. If they
tend to observe the ST norms, the TT will be adequate. However, when
they tend to observe the norms of the TL, they will guarantee the
acceptability of the ST in the target culture. In the translation of the above
extract, it is clear that special attention is paid to the linguistic and cultural
37
38
Chapter Two
stated above, yet it would not satisfy the majority of people in the field
who are in favour of a literal translation (cf. Hatim 2007b, 11):
(30) Having obtained the Ministers agreement, the Director may
authorize an appointed officer from time to time to implement the
objects of this Law . . .
39
Consider the following example quoted from Farghal (2008, 34) in which
the translator has made many ideological moves through several local
strategies, including framing ( claimed instead of said),
dysphemism ( The Zionist War Minister instead of
The Israeli Defense Minister), euphemism (
Martyrdom Operations instead of Suicide
operations), toning ( storming instead of entering), addition
( Israeli Occupation Forces instead of
Israeli Forces), and so on:
(31) In an interview with Newsweek yesterday, the Israeli Defense
Minister said that the Palestinian suicide operations constitute the
main cause for the Israeli troops entering cities in the West Bank.
(32)
.
[The Israeli War Minister claimed that the Palestinian Martyrdom
operations are the main cause of the Israeli occupation forces storming
Palestinian cities in the occupied West bank]
To see how what may seem a small ideological move at the lexical or
grammatical level can twist the message to varying degrees, let us consider
the two excerpts below: (for more examples, see Almomani 2012):
(33)
.
(ST)
[Verily worship houses, Islamic and Christian, are not mere places to
perform duties and rituals; rather they represent a true witness for our
existence, which has not been interrupted in this place politically,
spiritually, or ideologically]
(34) The holy shrines of Islam and Christianity are not only places of
worship but a living testimony of our interrupted presence here,
politically, spiritually, and intellectually. (TT)
(35) The Gaza fighting was a useful distraction from local problems, but
it also threatened to backfire on the state if the public perceived that
Irans scarce resources were being used to help anyone other than
Iranians. (ST)
(36)
.
(TT)
40
Chapter Two
[The fighting in Gaza is useful to divert the attention from local problems
but they bring opposite results in that the public see that the country now
and its scarce resources are used to help non-Iranian persons]
The English translation of the Arabic excerpt comes from the Israel
Ministry of Foreign Affairs translation of Anwar Sadats address to the
Israeli Knesset, 20 Nov. 1977. This translation, it can be readily observed,
conveys a message that contradicts the message in the original by
changing an uninterrupted presence of Muslims and Christians in
Palestine throughout history to an interrupted presence, which does not
amount to their making solid claims to Palestine in this regard. In its turn,
the Arabic translation of the English excerpt by Echo Beirut comes from a
political commentary titled Iran Tones down its Vocal Support for
Hamas by Michael Slackman (New York Times, 13 Jan. 2009). Through
the manipulation of grammar, the translation, as can be noted, has changed
the conditional state of affairs marked by if into one which is marked by
in Arabic (a realized state of affairs), thus twisting the ST for
ideological reasons. That is to say, what is presented in the ST as a
possibility is relayed in the TT as a matter of fact.
The question that arises here is whether the translator or the commissioner
of the translation has the right to interfere ideologically and gear the TT
towards different goals. According to Farghal (2012, 219), this question
loses much of its appeal when we consider the contexts in which such
intervention occurs. He writes:
On the one hand, translation activity may be viewed as a transferring
enterprise based on a sacred original, where the translator functions as a
mere mediator. On the other hand, translation activity may be regarded as
an authoring enterprise based on the skopos of the translation, where the
translator functions as a free agent. In-between, there are a host of cases in
which differing judgments can be passed.
41
did not occur from the Arab Gulf leaders when Ahmadi Najad (the Iranian
president) employed the Persian phrase corresponding to the Persian
Gulf many times (which the interpreter rendered as The
Persian Gulf) when he was addressing the GCC Summit Conference
(Doha, Qatar 2007) as a guest of honour. The interpreter rightly wanted to
alert the Gulf leaders by faithfully interpreting what Najad said because it
represented a political stance. Had the interpreter done otherwise, he
would have betrayed both the speaker and the audience. In this way, one
can cite the English proverbial expression Circumstances alter cases or
its Arabic counterpart [For every situation, there is a discourse].
Before closing this section, let us cite an extreme example of ideological
intervention in translation which led to a political crisis between Iran, on
the one hand, and Egypt and Bahrain, on the other. The Persian
interpretation of the address delivered by the Egyptian President
Mohammed Mursi at the conference of non-Allied Countries (Tehran 30
Aug. 2012) seriously deviated from the ST to the point that Mursis harsh
attack on the Syrian regime was interpreted as an attack on the political
regime in Bahrain. The address was largely manipulated ideologically to
suit the political inclinations and religious beliefs of the Iranian audience
as envisaged by the Iranian regime. Subsequently, this necessitated an
official apology from Iran to both Egypt and Bahrain wherein it attributed
what happened to translation errors. Whatever the case was, Iran got the
message it intended across to the public in Persian, which was the key
objective regardless of the consequences.
42
Chapter Two
people need to agree with the current members to be in the field and get
involved in its conflicts on the one hand, and accept the terms and
conditions of the social game on the other. Such acceptance of the terms
and conditions of the game and the familiarisation with the current
members are termed by Bourdieu (1990) habitus. Habitus, for him, means
the systems of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures
predisposed to function as structuring structures (ibid., 53). These
dispositions and structures drive individual agents in a particular field to
think in certain ways on the one hand, and most importantly guide them to
act accordingly on the other. In this regard, Yannakopoulou (2008, 7)
comments that habitus
gives the agents a feel for the game, a prism through which to perceive
reality, a guideline on how to act and react in a way that is considered
proper in each circumstance. It should be noted here that the habitus does
not determine ones actions, but merely guides them. All this is not done in
a conscious and deliberate manner. Rather, it is moulded through a long
process of inculcation according to the agents personal trajectories
through institutions, such as their family and school, their class, as well as
the position they hold within the particular field.
43
vs
the coalition forces in Iraq
armed gangs
vs
Syrian revolution
the Syrian regime
vs
the Syrian government
demonstrations
vs
riots
Palestinian Martyrs
vs
Palestinian Killed
44
Chapter Two
According to Bourdieu, apart from economic capital, there are other types
of capital, such as symbolic, cultural, and social capital. Bourdieu here
adopts a broad perspective to reintroduce capital in all its forms and not
only in the one form which is recognised by economic theory (1986, 242).
It thus becomes possible to outline the practice of the social world as
directed not only towards the acquisition of economic capital but of all
forms of capital.
Cultural capital, according to Bourdieu, takes one of three forms:
embodied, objectified and institutionalized. In its embodied form, cultural
capital consists of dispositions embodied in the mind and body of the
individual agent (Bourdieu 1986, 243), such as competences, skills, and
knowledge, capacities that people develop deliberately through training
and education or spontaneously through the unconscious processes of
socialization. In its objectified form, cultural capital consists of humanly
created objects such as pictures, books, instruments, machines, and the like.
As far as translation is concerned, translating and publishing a literary
work is an example of objectified cultural capital. This clearly explains to
us why some translators, in particular literary translators, readily agree to
translate lengthy books for nothing. In fact, it is not for nothing as they
will acquire in return cultural capital along with its symbolic value and
45
46
Chapter Two
2.12 Conclusion
This chapter has surveyed the different theories of translation which deal
with factors and constraints that usually impose various pressures on
translators before starting the actual process of translation. At the pretranslation stage, as has been shown, there is usually a tug of war between
several opposing poles: SL norms vs TL norms, TL master discourse vs
TL unbiased discourse, ST authority vs target readers needs, purpose of
translation in SL vs purpose of translation in TL, fidelity vs infidelity, and
so on. This clearly indicates that translation activity is a multi-faceted
process whose final product needs to be informed by a multitude of
decisions taken both globally at the pre-translation stage and locally during
the translation stage as the next chapter will demonstrate. The choice of
one global strategy rather than another ought to involve a conscious act
emanating from pitting a variety of constraints against each other. The
translators smooth transition from one strategy to another in light of
relevant constraints is a key indicator of his or her translation competence.
It remains true, however, that translation does not exist in pure forms as
translation thinking and problem solving is eclectic in nature (Pym 2010;
Farghal 2008; 2012). In this regard, Farghal: (2012, 131132) writes:
The competent translator should not restrict himself/herself to one
translation dichotomy and/or paradigm, but rather travel among them in
search of enlightened solutions to problems.
47
taboos on the one hand and where such topics usually tune well with the
stereotypical representations of Arab/Muslim communities.
CHAPTER THREE
LINGUISTIC CONSIDERATIONS
AND TRANSLATION
3.1 Overview
Despite the fact that human languages share general rules in the sense of
Chomskys universal grammar, it remains true that parametric variation
between languages involves a lot of mismatches at the different levels of
linguistic description. In this respect, Farghal (2012) holds that languages
phonologize, morphologize, syntacticize, lexicalize, and phraseologize
differently within general parameters. This fact rightly motivated Jakobson
(1959/1992) to say that translation between languages is a matter of
replacing messages in one language with messages in another without
getting trapped by surface linguistic features. Krazeszowki (1971, 3748)
argues that there are few, if any, congruent structures between languages.
One-to-one strict correspondence is, therefore, the exception rather than
the rule in translation. In most cases, the translator is confronted with oneto-many or many-to-one correspondences while working with any
language pair. Despite the numerous linguistic mismatches between
languages, Kachru (1982, 84) claims: Whatever can be said in one
language can be said equally well in any other language. While Kachrus
statement may be true in a qualified manner, we believe that the disparities
between languages are a matter of asymmetric equivalence or
resemblance. In this way, similarity can be detected within difference.
Newmark (1991, 8) stresses that due to differences in frequency, usage,
connotation, and the like, the meaning of any lexical item in Language A
cannot be identical to that in language B. Such linguistic differences at the
lexical or phrasal level, for instance, prompt translators to adopt certain
strategies to minimize such linguistic inequivalences (Al-Masri 2004,
74). This is in line with Hatim and Mason (1990, 23) who highlight that
translation involves overcoming the contrasts between language systems:
SL syntactic structures had to be exchanged for TL structures; lexical
items from each language had to be matched and the nearest equivalents
49
Examining the Arabic translation in (2), we can readily see that the
translator implemented four obligatory features, viz. using the dual form
( for the two boys), marking an adjective, a pronoun, and a verb
(//) for the dual number, and marking the adjectives for
definiteness (/). Here the translator has no choice but to follow
these adjustments because they are imposed by the language system in
Arabic. The violation of any obligatory feature would produce broken or
pidgin Arabic. One should note that obligatory features such as these are
taken for granted as part of language competence, and are hence not
deserving of any further discussion in translation activity.
In contrast, it is in the domain of optional features that translators exercise
decision-making and flexible choice. That is why translation criticism
flourishes in this area rather than in obligatory features. Looking again at
the translation in (2), one can imagine other linguistic options that could
have been followed, albeit subject to criticism, as can be illustrated in (3)
below:
50
Chapter Three
. .a (3)
[The two black boys quarrelled and they were playing in the narrow alley]
. .b
[The two black boys quarrelled when they were playing in the narrow
alley]
. .c
[The two black boys fell out while they were loitering in the narrow street]
As can be seen, each of the choices in (3) follows a linguistic option which
is different from the one adopted in (2). The first rendering (3a) changes
the word order from Verb-Subject to Subject-Verb while maintaining the
choice of conjunction (coordination) and lexis. The second rendering
maintains the word order and lexis while changing the conjunction into
subordination. In its turn, the last rendering (3c) extensively changes the
lexis ( for , for , and for ) while
preserving the word order and the choice of the category of conjunction,
that is, subordination albeit using a different subordinator ( when vs
while).
Let us now look at an authentic example from Hemingways The Old
Man and the Sea (1952), along with its Arabic translation in Baalbaks
(1985, 41):
(4) The boy was sad too and we begged her [the fishs] pardon and
butchered her promptly.
. (5)
[And the sadness overwhelmed the boy, so we begged pardon from the
killed fish and slaughtered it.]
51
or a camel. In fact, fish are not slaughtered the way other animals are; they
are just taken out of the water before they undergo chopping or anything
else, not being killed like other animals. Below is a suggested translation
that takes care of these critical points:
. (6)
[The boy was sad too, so we begged pardon from the fish and chopped it
promptly]
It is within the bounds of these translation options that the translation critic
can exercise his or her profession by showing how and why one option is
preferable to the other options. In the rest of this section, we will look at
translation options relating to different linguistic levels, namely
phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics.
52
Chapter Three
(9)
[Like the waves heading towards the pebbled shore
Minutes hasten in our age towards their end
Each exchanges the place with the one before it
Toiling towards the front in true competition]
It is true that the prose translation in (9) is more reflective of the content of
(7), but it is seriously lacking in poeticness because it ignores phonological
features, namely rhyme and meter. When compared with the translation in
(8), which differs in small ways as to the content of (7) while keeping the
same thematic thread, one can appreciate the discrepancy between the two.
It is the phonological features that qualify (8) as poetic discourse on the
one hand and (9) as commonplace discourse on the other. The mere layout
of material in poetry translation would in no way make up for improvising
key phonological features. In fact, it is a trade-off between form and
content, where form needs to be given priority in poetry translation.
One should note that poeticness is a matter of degree in human languages;
it is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon. Different discourses manifest
different degrees of poeticness and, apart from literary discourse, everyday
language is full of figurative expressions where phonological features
usually occupy a position. For example, such features play a key role in
the creation of proverbs which mirror social life in different cultures.
These proverbs often function as background for the formation of
remodeled expressions (for more details, see Al-Hamly and Farghal 2004).
By way of illustration, consider the two remodelings below:
(10) A smile a day keeps misery away. (Twitter)
(11) A laugh a day keeps the doctor away. (Daily Strength/Cyndi SarnoffRoss, 21 Oct. 2011)
53
54
Chapter Three
55
.
.
.
.
As can be seen in (12), the four Arabic verbs that are derived from the
same root require different renditions in English. This morphological
difference may cause problems to translators, as can be illustrated in the
authentic example below:
(13)
.
(The Arabic Newsweek, 4 February 2003)
[As the Japanese economic success after the Second World War was a
solid example copied by other countries in East Asia, so an average
success in Iraq may strengthen the arm of reformers in the region]
Chapter Three
56
For lack of an Arabic term, as can be seen, the English process noun in
(14) needs to be paraphrased into three Arabic words in (15). Below are
some authentic examples where the translator has opted for two strategies
(deletion and paraphrase) when encountering a morphological gap, namely
the English -able in this case (Khalid Hosseinis novel The Kite Runner,
2003, translated by Manar Fayyadh, , 2010):
(16)
(17)
(18)
(19)
.
.
.
.
.
As can be observed, the translator has unjustifiably opted for the deletion
of the -able words in the translations of (16) and (17). The translator has
either deemed them unimportant (which is not true) or found them
problematic, so she has decided to drop them. She could have rendered
them as follows:
. (20)
[She did a blood test for every conceivable hormone]
. (21)
[We Afghans are prone to a high degree of exaggeration]
In (18) and (19), however, the translator has succeeded in paraphrasing the
-able words correctly by adopting the paraphrase strategy. Inflectional
morphology may also present some translational problems. To give an
example relating to gender, in English a shark has a masculine gender (a
he), while in Arabic, being a fish, a shark has a feminine gender (a she),
57
As can be seen, the gender issue causes a coherence problem, viz. while
the ST talks about a male he behaving like a male in eating the bait and
in pulling, the TT talks about a female fish she behaving as if it were a
male. In this way, the ST and the TT present two different world views.
One might argue that it would be more coherent in the translation to refer
to a female fish behaving like a female fish rather than as if it were a
male fish. This might be more congruent with the wise decision to change
the he to a she in the Arabic translation. Gender, therefore, may present
itself as a problematic issue between English and Arabic because there is
no one-to-one correspondence in gender specification. Nouns like teacher,
nurse, and translator are gender unspecified in English, whereas they are
gender specified in Arabic, viz. / male/female teacher,
/ male/female nurse, and / male/female
translator. The translator may go a long way in his or her translation
before discovering, for instance, that the referent of a referring expression
such as Johns teacher is a she rather than a he.
Number marking may also present itself as a problematic matter in
translation. In the pre-published version of his translation of C.
McCarthys novel The Road (2006), Farghal (2009) decided to replace
the recurrent marked dual form in the Arabic translation with the plural
form. Being mainly a story about a father and his little boy, the Road
makes frequent narrative use of the pronoun they in reference to them.
The translator, in this case, has two options: either to use the Arabic
formal correspondent throughout, that is, the marked dual form, or to
replace the dual form with the unmarked plural form. Farghals decision
was to employ the dual form only in a few cases where intimacy is
communicated. Otherwise, the unmarked plural form is to be used for ease
58
Chapter Three
Given the high frequency of the dual form in (24) and in the entire
translation in question for that matter, the Arab reader would not feel at
ease encountering the marked dual form so frequently in the narrative and,
one can argue, would feel more comfortable with it being replaced with
the unmarked plural form, whose referential value is readily recoverable
from the novels macro-context, that is, its being a story about a father and
his little son. Here, once more, we have inflectional morphology
interfering with decision making in translation.
Apart from derivation and inflection, other word formation processes may
present some translation problems. For example, whereas conversion is a
highly productive word formation process in present-day English, it is
completely missing in Arabic where changing the part of speech of a word
must involve a formal change. In many cases, English verbs resulting from
59
60
Chapter Three
61
Arabic word order in his or her first sentence detailing the news story, viz.
. . . arrived the American president
Barak Obama in Damascus . . .. This functional shift between the two
word orders in Arabic is very significant in translation activity. It is a
syntactic means to improvise prominence through word order variation.
Grammatical resources employed to achieve major semantic functions
such as negation and emphasis may be similar in some cases but different
in others. Let us first consider negation which can be syntactically
accomplished by the use of negative particles such as not in English and
// in Arabic depending on the category of Tense. This will usually
cause no difficulty for translators: for example, the sentence John will not
try to get a PhD is straightforwardly rendered as
. However, notional (implied) negation involving an adverb
like too will be more challenging to translators who need to render the
meaning of negation rather than be trapped by the form of the sentence,
e.g. the negation in the sentence John is too old to get a PhD should be
unpacked when rendering it into Arabic, viz.
John will not be able to get a PhD because he
has progressed in age or
Johns age has progressed and he will not be able to get a PhD. This
kind of negation in English may cause problems for student translators as
well as professional translators. Note the erroneous renditions of (34) and
(36) in (35) and (37), which are extracted from two different published
Arabic translations:
(34) I think youve been too busy to notice where Ive been.
. (35)
[(I) think that you were very busy to notice where I am]
(36) . . . but his hands were shaking too hard to pin it on.
. . . . (37)
[. . . but his hands-dual were-dual shaking-dual strongly to pin the bouquet
on the dress]
The renditions in (35) and (37) hardly make any sense in Arabic because
they confuse implied negation with emphasis. The interpretation of the
negation marker too as the emphatic marker so does irreparable
damage to the meaning.
62
Chapter Three
Working from Arabic into English, the translator may also encounter
several syntactic hurdles. One interesting example is the emphatic cognate
accusative where an act is emphasized by deriving a masdar (present
participle) from the verb predicator instead of employing an adverbial, as
can be illustrated below:
. (38)
(39) *a) The boy shook the branch shaking.
b) The boy shook the branch indeed.
c) The boy did shake the branch.
63
As can be seen, the five bold-faced nouns (3 plural count nouns and 2 noncount nouns) in (42), which all involve generic reference in the Quranic
verse, are rendered erroneously as nouns involving specific reference. This
comes as an immediate consequence of the translators not being sensitive
to a syntactic asymmetry at the level of definiteness. Thus, instead of
correctly using the zero article with these nouns, they employ the
referential definite article.
Epistemic modality, which constitutes the ways speakers view the world
around them in terms of (un)certainty (Halliday 1970 and Lyons 1977),
also involves mismatches between English and Arabic. In fact, one cannot
assume a one-to-one correspondence between English and Arabic modal
verbs. A grammatical gap may sometimes cause a translator to use an
inappropriate translation correspondent. For example, the English modal
verbs must and should are bivalent, as they can be employed
deontically to express strong obligation and epistemically to express
strong conjecture, whereas their formal Arabic correspondents and
may express strong obligation only. This problematic mismatch is
illustrated in the translations in (47) and (48) of the bold-faced segments in
(45) and (46):
64
Chapter Three
(45) They [the fish] are moving out too fast and too far. But perhaps I [the
old man] will pick up a stray and perhaps my big fish is around them.
My big fish must be somewhere. (The Old Man and the Sea)
(46) I wonder what he [the fish] made that lurch for, he thought. The wire
must have slipped on the great hill of his back. (The Old man and
the Sea)
(Baalbak 1985) . (47)
[Verily my big fish has to be somewhere]
(Baalbak 1985) . (48)
[The metal wire has to have slipped on her back (which is) like a mountain]
65
(49) Buran (the Russian word for snowstorm) was lifted into orbit by the
worlds largest rocket.
( ) (50)
.
[Buran (which means snowstorm in Russian) was lifted to its orbit by the
biggest launching rocket in the world]
(51) New-generation space stations would be needed to house assembly
workers.
. (52)
[There will occur the need for a new generation of space stations for
housing assembly workers]
(53) The space-endurance record was systematically extended.
. (54)
[The record number for staying in the space rose a systematic rising]
(55) Salyut 7 was equipped with a redesigned docking adapter.
. 7 (56)
[Salyut 7 was supplied [passive participle in Arabic] with a docking unit
(which) was redesigned]
66
Chapter Three
. (57)
(58) So glory be to Allah when you enter the evening and when you enter
the morning.
(59) So glory be to God in your evening hour and in your morning hour.
One should note that the combination of the time marker and the verb
/ gives a sense of progressiveness in the Quranic verse,
which is missed out in the two translations, viz. Ali renders the
combination as a punctual act, whereas Arberry renders it as a state. To
capture the sense of the progressive aspect, the translator needs to choose a
similar strategy where a time marker interacts with a verb to bring out this
progressiveness, viz. So glory be to Allah as you progress/move into the
evening and as you progress/move into the morning.
67
concepts while the other language has those concepts compressed lexically
in single words. Despite the fact that both English and Arabic are highly
lexicalized (e.g. in terms of nominalization and verbalization) when it
comes to familiar concepts, some lexical gaps do exist between them.
Therefore, when translating an SL lexeme corresponding to a lexical gap in
the TL, the translator needs to unpack the sense of that lexeme in order to
render the sense correctly. Working from Arabic into English, for example,
four of the names of the fingers of the human hand, viz.
usually undergo lexical unpacking when rendered into
English, viz. thumb, the index finger, the middle finger, the ring finger and
the little finger, respectively. In many cases, Arabic lexemes corresponding
to lexical gaps in English undergo lexical approximation: for example,
paternal uncle and maternal uncle are usually rendered as uncle, and
paternal aunt and maternal aunt as aunt. While this may work in
many contexts where the side of kinship is not important, it may seriously
fail in instances where this kind of thing is significant. In such cases, the
lexical unpacking of the kinship term becomes necessary.
To see how lexical gaps can present formidable problems to even highly
professional translators, let us cite an example from fiction translation to
observe how rendering an Arabic lexeme by approximation can be
damaging to the coherence of the text. In his translation of AbdulRahmn Munfs : , 1992 (Cities of Salt: Variations
on Night and Day, 1993), Peter Thereoux translates the Arabic proverb
[Two thirds of the boy for his maternal uncle] as Two thirds of a
boy are his uncles. The fictitious encounter involves the citation of this
proverb by one of the characters to claim more influence for maternal
kinship than paternal kinship on children. Unfortunately, the English
translation obliterates this culture-bound schema by neutralizing the
distinction between the Arabic lexemes paternal uncle and
maternal uncle in a context where the discrepancy constitutes the
intended message. The TL reader will definitely fall prey to the
incongruence brought about by a rendition that does not cohere with the
surrounding co-text and context. Following are some target reader
responses (American native speakers responses) to the English translation
above in its context (reported in Farghal, 2004):
(60) - Family is everything.
- Apples dont fall far from the tree.
- A boy learns from his family around him.
- People trust their uncles
- People follow their masters, etc.
68
Chapter Three
69
While it is true that the term affidavit is not lexicalized in Arabic, the
wordy definition is not justified in the Arabic rendering. A more
acceptable and economical rendition would involve modifying the Arabic
hyperonym testimony by one word without falling prey to
wordiness (62 above) as in (63) below:
1988 2 (63)
. . .
[And according to the text found in a judicial testimony . . .]
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Chapter Three
(65) And be constant in prayer, and render the purifying dues; for,
whatever good deed you send ahead for your own selves, you shall
find it with God: behold, God sees all that you do. (110) (Asad, p. 32)
(66) Establish worship, and pay the poor-due; and whatever of good you
send before (you) for your souls, you will find it with Allah. Lo!
Allah is Seer of what you do. (110) (Pickthall, p. 18)
(67) And be steadfast in prayer and regular in charity: And whatever
good ye send forth for your souls before you, ye shall find it with
God. For God sees well all that ye do. (110) (Ali, p. 48)
(68) And perform the prayer, and pay the alms; whatever good you shall
forward to your souls account, you shall find it with God; assuredly
God sees the things you do. (110) (Arberry, vol. 1, p. 42)
(69) Keep up prayer and pay the welfare tax; you will find any good you
have sent on ahead for your own souls sake is already [stored up]
with God. God is Observant of whatever you do. (110) (Irving, p. 9)
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Chapter Three
They recited Al Fatihat audibly; it was possible that Hassan had learned it
at that gambling table. (p. 53)
(p. 51) . . . (72)
[And Fard Affandi was wearing a julbb and an overcoat. As for his
wife, she wrapped (herself) in a (bathroom) robe . . .
(73) . . . Farid Effendi wearing an overcoat over his gown, and his wife a
dressing gown. (p. 66)
(74)
:
(46 ) . [Then reached their ears knocking on the door, so one of them stopped
talking and Nafsa went to it (the door) and opened it. So the servant of
Fareed Affandi Mohammed entered carrying a basket covered with a white
cover, placing it on the table and saying:
- My mistress greets you with peace and says this is pastry of graveyard]
(75) A knock on the door interrupted their conversation. Nefisa hurried to
open it. The servant of Farid Effendi Mohammed entered carrying a
basket with a white cover and placed it on the table. My mistress
sends you her regards, madam, she said, and she sends you
mourning pastry. (p. 5960)
As can be observed above, the translator has used different strategies for
dealing with referential gaps. In (71), the referential gap is defined in the
first mention and transliterated in the second one. This is a successful
strategy where a contextual and/or co-textual link is established between
definition and transliteration. In (72), the first gap (a title of address
indicating respect for and superiority of the addressee or referent) is
transliterated in (73) and elsewhere in the text. The title is constantly
employed as an absolute social honorific when referring to Farid (Farid
Effendi). One should note that this title may be used relationally
(interactionally) in Arabic (for more on absolute and relational social
honorifics, see Farghal and Shakir 1994), in which case it should be
approximated to something like sir, man, guy, big fellow, and so on,
depending on the context it occurs in. Considering the other two items,
(a loose garment covering the body from neck to feet) is successfully
approximated to gown in English, while robe, which is a
borrowing designating the kind of gown worn when taking a bath, is
unjustifiably approximated to a dressing gown. To bring out this cultural
nuance, the translator could have maintained the same lexeme (robe),
adding a modifier, viz. a bathroom robe, in order to capture the extreme
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Chapter Three
74
heavy rain
heavy sleep
heavy meal
heavy fog
heavy smoker
heavy sea
heavy
industry
h. heavy traffic
i. heavy
demands
[pouring rains]
[deep sleep]
[fatty meal]
[condensed fog]
[person extreme in smoking]
[wavy sea]
[heavy industry]
[traffic crisis]
[demands
difficult
achieve]
to
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Chapter Three
narrow escape, the Arab reader would be struck by the unnatural Arabic
collocations in the examples above.
Idiomatic expressions, for their part, are frozen expressions whose unitary
meaning cannot be worked out from the dictionary meaning of the
individual words in them. Such idiomatic expressions usually render the
text more emotive. In terms of translation, however, the tinge of
emotiveness furnished by idiomatic expressions can be maintained only
when they appropriately lend themselves to rendering into corresponding
TL expressions (whether in form or function). Otherwise, their
communicative import is rendered apart from the idiomatic phraseologies
(for more details on strategies to translate idioms, see Newmark 1988 and
Baker 1992). Following are some illustrative examples:
(81) It started raining cats and dogs when Peter met his blind date at the
park.
. (82)
[It started raining like mouths of goatskins when Peter met his girl
whose identity is unknown to him at the park]
. (83)
[The strikers had to hold the white flag and accept an unfair settlement
with the company]
(84) The strikers had to throw in the towel and accept an unfair
settlement with the company.
(85) The Syrians are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea
their leaders cause great suffering, but an invasion would bring many
other problems.
(86)
.
[The Syrians fell between a pair of pincers; while their leaders cause
much suffering, a foreign invasion would bring many problems]
. (87)
[From a historical perspective, Ibn Khaldun is considered a theorist whose
dust cannot be penetrated in sociology]
(88) From a historical perspective, Ibn Khaldun is considered a past
master theorist in sociology.
77
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Apart from the general quality of the translation, the English idiomatic
expression turn something on its head in (93) is correctly rendered into
the Arabic idiomatic expression [turn the things
head on its bottom] in (94). By contrast, for lack of a corresponding
Arabic idiomatic expression, the English idiomatic expression a dark
horse in (95) has been reduced to its basic sense in (96), viz.
[who is a person who was not well-known].
3.6 Conclusion
Being fundamentally a linguistic exercise, the translation process needs to
involve a close consideration of all linguistic aspects of the text, including
phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic features. The present
chapter has selectively explored, with ample illustrative examples,
linguistic features that translators need to be alerted to in their work. In
particular, various strategies for handling linguistic parameters have been
investigated in the hope of bringing them into the consciousness of
practicing translators. The discussion also offers insights into further
investigations of linguistic considerations in translation activity. Together
with other considerations, including the textual, pragmatic, cultural,
stylistic, and so on (see subsequent chapters), the translators work will
definitely become an informed act.
CHAPTER FOUR
TEXTUAL ASPECTS OF TRANSLATION
4.1 Overview
Drawing on the preference hypothesis claimed by Blum-Kulka (1986/2004,
19), Baker (1992, 183) holds that every language has its own stylistic
conventions and preferences in using certain textual patterns, that is,
cohesive devices, thematic patterns, and parallel structures. Obligatory
textual shifts occurring due to specific linguistic systems will be ignored in
this chapter, shifting the focus towards optional textual shifts occurring
due to differences in stylistic preferences among languages. In the analysis
of text organization, in particular with relation to translation, the concept
of cohesion comes to the fore. The topic of cohesion . . . has always
appeared to be the most useful constituent of discourse analysis or text
linguistics applicable to translation, comments Newmark (1991, 69).
A large number of linguists have dealt with the issue of cohesion, for
example Halliday and Hasan (1976), Brown and Yule (1983), Newmark
(1988; 1991), Hatim and Mason (1990), Bell (1991), Hoey (1991), Baker
(1992), Eggins (1994), Thompson (1996), Stillar (1998), Titscher et al
(2000), and Dickins et al (2002). Investigating the definitions that are
given by the authors above, one can infer that cohesion involves semantic
relations (Halliday and Hasan 1976, 4), or semantic ties (Eggins 1994,
88), that is, the meanings of some elements of a text cannot be decoded
without reference to other elements within the text. In addition to
involving semantic relations, cohesion is a textual phenomenon
(Thompson 1996, 147), or surface relations (Baker 1992, 218).
Cohesion, as Halliday and Hasan (1976, 9) indicate, can be intra-sentential
or inter-sentential. They elaborate that cohesive relations between
sentences are the ONLY source of texture, that is, the only source of text
organization that can contribute to text cohesion, whereas within the
sentence there are the structural relations as well (capitals theirs). That is
why these cohesive devices are very clear between sentences. They
identify five types of cohesion, namely reference, substitution, ellipsis,
conjunction, and lexical cohesion. However, some cohesive devices do not
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81
Quite clearly, Abdulla is confused between the two terms: reiteration and
repetition. In the sense of Halliday and Hasans (1976) use of the term,
reiteration does not mean simply the repetition of the same lexical item,
but covers certain relations that hold between lexical items, such as
synonymy, as in big and large; hyperonymy-hyponymy, as in
lawyer and solicitor, and general words, as in burger and chicken
burger. Most interestingly, Fareh (1988, 242), in his PhD dissertation
titled Paragraph Structure in Arabic and English Expository Discourse,
concludes that lexical repetition is the most frequent cohesive device in
both Arabic and English, accounting for 64.8% of the total cohesive
devices in Arabic and 73% in English. This finding contradicts the
general belief that Arabic is more inclined to employ lexical repetition
than English.
Similarly, Al-Khafaji (2011, 155) arrives at the conclusion that Arabic
and English exhibit very similar overall proportional ratios in the
frequency of lexical recurrence and variation. However, he argues,
the general assumption that lexical repetition is more frequent in Arabic
is due to different distributional patterns such as length and density of
lexical chains. For example, lexical chains in Arabic are longer than in
English and the distance of lexical repetition is much shorter in Arabic
lexical chains than it is in English, a fact which leads to a higher density
of lexical repetition.
With this in mind, one has to view claims relating to Arabic repetition in
general (Kaplan 1966; Johnstone 1991) and lexical repetition in
particular cautiously. It seems that lexical reiteration in form recurrence
and in meaning variation is a key cohesive device in both Arabic and
English. However, the frequency of this type of cohesion is sensitive to
text-type. For example, Al-Jabr (1987, 2) maintains that while fictional
narratives largely cohere through pronominal reference, editorial and
science texts derive much cohesion from lexical repetition (for similar
conclusions, see also chapter 6 in Al-Khafaji 2011, 163200).
In terms of translation, lexical repetition may be rendered as lexical
repetition in the TT or, alternatively, may be changed into another
cohesive device such as pronominal reference, ellipsis, or substitution, as
Chapter Four
82
. . . (3)
. . . . . . .
[We were - I and Salwa, sitting in the little coffee shop ... Her face
features resembled your face features ... and suddenly ... she grabbed her
little black handbag and jumped to her feet]
(4)
Salwa and I were sitting in the little coffee shop. . . . Her facial
features like yours were. . . . Then all of a sudden . . . she grabbed
her little black handbag and jumped to her feet.
. . . (5)
. . . .
[Salwa didnt go far; rather she moved to the table next to the table which
we were sitting at. . . . Its a small coffee shop. . . . It accommodates but
two tables or just one table. . . . It is probably one table]
(6) Salwa didnt go far away. All she did was move over to the table right
next to ours. . . . Its a small coffee shop . . . theres only room for two
tables . . . or just one . Yes . . . it probably wont accommodate more
than one .
The translator, Nancy Roberts (an English native speaker and a reputable
translator of Arabic literature) has opted for several strategies in
rendering lexical repetition in the above excerpts. In the first excerpt, she
has employed both recurrence and variation in rendering it. One can
notice that the TT invests lexical repetition as a cohesive device even to a
greater extent than the ST: viz. there are five instances of lexical
repetition in the TT corresponding to four instances in the ST. In the
second excerpt, the translator has replaced lexical repetition with
pronominal reference, which is a familiar strategy in translation activity.
In the last excerpt, two cohesive devices (deletion and substitution) are
used to replace lexical repetition in the TT: viz. the five instances of
83
As can be seen, the three cases of recurrence (my mother) in the English
text have generated only two instances () in the Arabic translation,
the third having been replaced with a reference marker (). By contrast,
the case of lexical variation in the ST (Pesca/professor) has been replaced
with lexical recurrence (two instances of Pesca). Apparently, while
reiteration in its formal and semantic manifestations plays a key role in
both Arabic and English discourse, it is possible in both languages to
replace some of its occurrences with other cohesion types. The density of
reiteration in the ST, which needs to be borne out in the TT, depends on
the type of text we have, for example, literary versus scientific or legal text.
4.3 Reference
In general, any language has certain items that can be utilized by the
language user as referential words. These words cannot be interpreted in
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their own right, so the reader/hearer has to look for their interpretation
elsewhere, either inside or outside the text. Halliday and Hasan (1976, 33)
state that there are two main types of co-reference: endophoric reference
(i.e. textual reference) and exophoric reference (i.e. situational reference).
Arabic and English differ in using referential words in terms of
explicitness (Aziz 1993). In the same vein, Baker (1992, 183) elaborates:
Within the same language, text type seems to be an important factor in
determining the choice of pattern, let alone across languages. She goes on
to stress that each language has what we might call general preferences for
certain patterns of reference as well as specific preferences that are sensitive
to text type. Consider the following example quoted from Abdulsattr
Nsirs story Three Stories not for Publishing
(translated by and cited in Almanna and Al-Rubaii 2009, 1415):
. . . (9)
[Therefore the people lived happily and merrily. . . . And no one mentioned
the minister or the guard or the queen, who was the mistress of all]
(10) In this way the people carried on, happy and contented. No one ever
mentioned the treasurer, the guard or even the queen, who once had
been the mistress of all.
85
. . . . (12)
.( )
[. . . and in his hand [was] a reading easel fastened in the arm of the chair
and a small table fastened in the other arm]
4.4 Conjunction
Conjunction is a systematic way to connect the next part of the text to
what has been mentioned earlier; it involves the use of formal markers to
relate sentences, clauses and paragraphs to each other (Baker 1992, 190).
Nation (cited in Al-Kredey 2000, 38) states that if a conjunct is used to
achieve conjunction, then the relationship is marked; otherwise, the
relationship is unmarked. A conjunct does not set off a search backward
or forward for its referent, but it does presuppose a textual sequence, and
signals a relationship between segments of the discourse (McCarthy 1991,
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.
[In her luxurious, quiet apartment, when Lady A was expecting him to pass
by, she felt that the balcony was about to collapse and pour down the trees
on the neighbouring sidewalk, but she pulled herself together in the chair]
(17) In her grand, stately apartment, while Lady A was waiting for her
passer-by, it seemed to her that the balcony was going to collapse
and rain down on the trees lining the neighborhood sidewalk. But she
pulled herself together in the chair.
87
In this way, the translator has opted for an identical structure of packaging
information which would obscure the meaning of the original. That is, the
Arabic text states clearly that Lady A was sitting in a chair at the balcony.
The translation, however, leaves this fact unclear: Was the lady sitting in a
chair inside her apartment or at the balcony? The Arabic text makes this
point clear by the employment of the resumptive pronoun her in lit.
in her. Had the translator opted for a more TT-oriented syntax, he would
have restructured the propositions as follows:
(18) Lady A was sitting at the balcony in her grand, stately apartment.
She was expecting him to pass; she felt the balcony was going to
collapse and rain down on the trees lining the neighborhood sidewalk,
but she pulled herself together in the chair.
As can be seen, the first two propositions in the Arabic text she was
sitting at the balcony . . . and she was expecting him to pass are
conjoined by subordination, whereas they are restructured as separate
sentences in the translation, thus obtaining clarity in the TT by altering the
way information is packaged. That is, what is felt to be a subordinate
proposition in the ST is justifiably presented as a main proposition in the
TT. In this regard, Shen (1987, 185) comments that the way in which the
syntactic units are connected (say, whether subordinated (one to another)
or coordinated (with or without punctuation in between)) plays a vital
role in determining the pace of the processes involved. However, one
should note that travelling between coordination and subordination is a
common practice aiming at naturalizing the flow of discourse in
translation practice. In terms of conjunction, the Arabic text is more
explicit than the English translation: viz. English aspect (past progressive)
and punctuation (the period) replace the Arabic subordinator when,
and punctuation (the semicolon) replaces the Arabic coordinator and.
However, the strong semantic relation signaled by the contrast marker
but is needed in both Arabic and English to successfully orient the reader.
When dealing with conjunction, one important point to note when
translating between English and Arabic is the fact that English texture is
largely implicative/asyndetic while Arabic discourse is predominantly
explicative/syndetic (Baker 1992; Hatim 1997; Al-Hamly and Farghal
2004; Al-Khafaji 2011; Farghal 2012, among others). This textual
mismatch necessitates a reduction in the number of conjunctions when
translating from Arabic into English and an increase in the number of
conjunctions when working from English into Arabic. Without accounting
for this fact, the Arabic translation would most likely sound flat and
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Unlike the English text, the Arabic text invests cohesion through the
employment of four instances of the coordinator and and one instance
of the coordinator so. Without these cohesive devices, which have no
corresponding elements in the English text, the Arabic text would be
awkward and incohesive. To appreciate this textual discrepancy, following
is a back translation of the Arabic text:
(21) And the only signal which I could notice and (whose) signification
revealed what was going on inside her and the extreme difficulty
which faces her in preserving the appearances of a happy bride was
her rejection to stay alone and even for one moment. So instead of
retreating to her room as she had been doing previously, she seemed
afraid of doing that act completely.
Other things being equal, one can readily see how tediously explicit the
English text will be if we are to follow the cohesion network in Arabic.
The Arab reader, however, would feel a discoursal gap if any of the
conjunctions in the Arabic translation above is left out because it is these
conjunctions which naturalize and smooth the flow of discourse and,
subsequently, render it acceptable.
In some cases, the suppressed logical relationship in English must be
brought to the surface in Arabic by the use of a conjunction. Consider the
suppressed cause-result relation in English and its explicit counterpart in
Arabic in the example below:
(22) I have resolved to prolong our stay for another week at least. It is
useless to go back to Limmeridge till there is an absolute necessity
for our return. (The Woman in White)
89
(23)
( ) .
[I decided to extend our stay here for another week because there (is) no
use of going back to Limmeridge unless something necessary happens
(which) necessitates our return]
As can be seen, the Arabic text would not be cohesive without the
causative conjunction because/since.
Another important issue that needs to be pointed out when working
between Arabic and English is the fact that Arabic discourse favours
coordination in both its spoken and written modes, whereas English tends
to use subordination much more commonly than coordination in written
discourse. In this way, a predominantly paratactic Arabic text needs to
feature more instances of subordination in English translation and, by the
same token, a predominantly hypotactic English text is supposed to show
more cases of coordination in Arabic. Witness how the following Arabic
segment that involves four coordinate clauses has been rendered into two
separate sentences featuring a subordinate phrase and a main clause each:
(24)
(300 ) . . . :
[He feared the consequence of silence, so he exited it fearfully and
uneasily then he said while exerting the extremes of his effort to control
himself . . .]
(25) Afraid that silence would prove harmful, Yasin abandoned it
fearfully and uneasily. Making a valiant effort to gain control of
himself, he said, . . . (Palace Walk, Mahfouz 1990, p. 314)
This being the case, the translator needs to be aware of this key textual
mismatch between English and Arabic in order to produce acceptable
translations. His or her ability to move from parataxis to hypotaxis and
vice versa constitutes an important component of his or her translation
competence when working with this language pair.
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91
As can be seen, the non-finite phrases in the ST have been replaced with
finite clauses in the TT, viz. and it was furled, and
The translator, as can be observed in this example, has replaced the Arabic
finite clause and because he is the Sheikh with the English nonfinite phrase being in this privileged position, which corresponds to the
non-finite phrase in Arabic.
4.5 Conclusion
These differences in the way that languages organize their texts require
translators, after having taken into account the demands of genre, text type,
and desired level of naturalness versus accuracy, to strike a balance between
the textual constraints imposed on them and the selection of the most
appropriate local strategy. In other words, these mismatches require
translators to question the degree of loss in translation so as to opt for a local
strategy, or a combination of more than one, that will minimize such loss.
CHAPTER FIVE
CULTURAL CONSIDERATIONS
AND TRANSLATION
5.1 Overview
In recent years, the focus of translation studies has shifted from endless
debates about equivalence to broader issues, including culture and its
effect on both the process and product of translation. Further, recent
studies (cf. Snell-Hornby 1988/1995; Bassnett 1980) have shown that the
translation process can no longer be seen as being merely between two
linguistic systems, but is envisaged as being between two cultures. In this
regard, Snell-Hornby (1988/1995, 46), echoing Vermeers (1986) views,
holds that translation is a cross-cultural transfer, and the translator should
be bicultural, if not pluricultural. Nida (1994, 157) defines culture as the
total beliefs and practices of a society. Words only have meaning in terms
of the culture in which they are used, and although languages do not
determine culture, they certainly tend to reflect a societys beliefs and
practices. Culture is not a material phenomenon, consisting of things,
people, behavior, or emotion (Goodenough 1964, 3940). Rather, it is
an organization of these things. It is the forms of things that people have in
mind, their models for perceiving, relating, and otherwise interpreting them.
As such, the things people say and do, their social arrangements and events,
are products or by-products of their culture as they apply it to the task of
perceiving and dealing with their circumstances.
This entails that there should be some sort of agreement among people in a
given society to accept a new belief, behaviour, custom, moral, habit,
emotion, or so on. It is this agreement that seems to alienate any attempt
to introduce any new beliefs, emotions, behaviours, etc. which [do] not
conform to the societys communal memory (Al-Taher 2008, 60).
Katan (1999, 26), however, defines culture as a shared mental model or
map for interpreting reality and organizing experience of the world. This
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The English translation above gives the impression that the referent (the
speakers son) walks around with his eyes fixed on the ground, not looking
at anyone. In this way, the symbolic physical act (lifting eyes), which is
used as an index of politeness, is interpreted literally apart from its
metaphorical value. To capture the metaphorical meaning, the translator
needs first to function as an insider in the SLC, which enables him or her
to process the expression correctly within its own culture, and then
functions as an insider in the TLC, which enables him or her to make
transparent the metaphorical value of the expression in question. These
two conditions met, a rendering such as the one below may be offered:
95
(5) Of course, sir. My son is so polite that he wouldnt lift his eyes to
look at a neighbour girl or any other girl for that matter.
Note that this translation takes care of the cultural background that lifting
eyes to look at girls is not categorically prohibited; in this context it is
linked to a boys/mans having emotional/sexual intentions, which
stereotypically concerns neighbour girls in the Arab culture.
As such, one can conclude that the translator should be an insider in both
the SLC and TLC while dealing with culture-bound expressions. In other
words, she or he needs to be an insider in the source culture using his or
her knowledge to understand the SL culture-bound expression on the one
hand, and be an insider in the target culture to record such an experience
of the world in the TL. Let us consider the following rendition offered by
Le Gassick and Badawi (1984, 17) in the following extract quoted from
Mahfouzs (1961, 11) novel The Thief and the Dogs:
. (6)
[Shut up you son of a fox]
(7) Shut up, you cunning bastard.
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When the use of swearing or any other form of bad language is so frequent
that it becomes a stylistic marker of the text, the equivalence of style
becomes as important as the semantic equivalence.
97
On the other hand, while the translators in the second excerpt have also
functioned as outsiders in the TLC, their literal rendering can,
nonetheless, be interpreted as a serious condemnation, thus relaying the
cultural value of the swearing expression, though not following the norms
of the TLC in such contexts. To do so, they could have given something
like:
(13) Let me speak! Dont interrupt me. Dont interfere in things you
cant comprehend. Pay attention to your work. Damn it!
One should note that while the cultural mishap in the rendering of the first
excerpt cannot be tolerated because it deviates seriously from the intended
cultural message, the slight mishap in the translation of the second excerpt
can be tolerated taking into account the skopos of the translation. That is,
some translators may give priority to adequacy over acceptability (see
chapter 2). Within the insider/outsider cultural model which brings culture
into the spotlight, the translator also needs to strike a balance between the
different constraints in translation activity (see chapter 2) in order to do
justice to both cultures.
To see how different translators may jeopardize culture-bound expressions
in translation, let us consider the two Arabic-into-English renderings
below, which involve a Kuwaiti culture-bound element, viz. the concept of
one-eyed vote in parliamentary elections. In this scene, a voter
reports on what Ali Faraj (a parliamentary candidate) confided in him just
before going into the polling room:
(14) - . . . he came close to me and whispered in my ear, Look! I want a
one-eyed vote. (Al- Maleh and Farghal, 2004, 223)
(15) - . . . he came close to me, whispering in my ear, We want your
vote. (Al-Sanousi, 2006)
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copies of the two translations in order to consult the context of this culturebound expression. What does this mean? Probably, the translator needs to be
more transparent when rendering culture-bound expressions by combining
local strategies, for example, literal translation followed by parenthetical
definition or paraphrase, thus hitting two birds with one stone. In this
example, a parenthetical phrase following the culture-bound expression such
as (exercising one of the two votes only) would do the job.
What about the other rendering? It was comprehensible and preferable to
all the informants although the culture-bound element is completely lost.
Consequently, the rendering does not cohere with the surrounding co-text
in which the voter says that he did not listen to Faraj and exercised the
right of two votes, albeit he was influenced by the big favour Faraj did him.
As a matter of fact, he tells the reader that his first vote went to another
candidate (Mohammed Farhan) while he happily (in the excitement of the
said favour) gave the second (which he had planned to give to Fahd AlJasim) to Faraj. Here, one wonders what happened to this culture-bound
element which functions as an important semiotic sign in the ST. This
serious under-translation does not only cripple the TT in terms of cultural
transfer, but it also distorts the coherence of the translation because it does
not logically fit within the surrounding text (for more on this, see Farghal
and Al-Masri 2000).
The polar opposition between foreignizing and domesticating culture
needs to be reconciled in a way that ensures comprehensibility while not
compromising cultural elements or, to fall back on Arab proverbial culture,
to find a solution whereby the wolf does not die and the sheep do not
perish . That is why several translators rethink
some of their renderings of culture-bound expressions when they republish
their translations. For example, Le Gassick (1966, 26) rendered the Arabic
proverb [I fast and breakfast on an onion] in N.
Mahfouzs novel Midaq Alley (1947, 26) as I am willing to go
on a diet and have just an onion for breakfast. The translation sounds as a
statement of a decision that deviates seriously from the cultural import: viz.
it was uttered by Mrs. Afify as an ironic response reflecting her
dissatisfaction with Umm Hamads suggestion to her to marry an old man.
Apart from the mistranslated message, the translators attempt to
domesticate the concept fasting into dieting is unsuccessful as the two
cultural elements belong to different spheres: religion and health
respectively. When Le Gassick republished his translation of the novel in
(1975, 20), he changed his translation of the proverb to read What, break
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101
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5.3 Conclusion
The above discussion shows translators sufferings while trying to finalize
their renderings of culture-bound expressions. After probing the deep
symbolic levels of the language in the ST and trying to capture the cultural
implications meant by the author, the translators progress is automatically
slowed down in an attempt to decide on the available local strategies that
would reflect such a cultural issue in the TL in a way that language and
content will allow the [target] reader to interact in parallel fashion to the
source text reader (Hall 2008, 224). This feat may be achieved only when
the translator can strike a balance between playing the roles of insider
and outsider properly with respect to the two cultures in question. The
authentic illustrations given in this chapter are but a small taste of what
might happen when translators encounter culture-bound elements in their
work.
CHAPTER SIX
PRAGMATIC DIMENSION AND TRANSLATION
6.1 Overview
In contrast with semantics, the study of the relationship between linguistic
properties and entities in the real world, pragmatics is often defined as the
study of language use, that is, the study of purposes for which [such
linguistic forms] are used (Stalnaker 1972, 380). In its narrower sense,
pragmatics deals with how linguistic elements and contextual factors work
side by side in the interpretation of an utterance, enabling the hearer/reader
to grasp the meaning intended by the speaker/writer rather than just
adhering to the referential meaning of an utterance. Emery (2004, 150),
adapting Blum-Kulkas (1986/2004) views, writes we have to negotiate a
texts coherence in a dynamic, interactive operation in which the covert
potential meaning relationship among parts of a text is made overt by the
reader/listener through processes of interpretation. Several studies on
pragmatic problems (Levinson 1983; Leech 1983; Farghal and Shakir
1994; Farghal and Borini 1996, 1997; Emery 2004; Hall 2008; Farghal
2012) have shown that speech acts, addressing terms, conversational
implicature, and politeness strategies are the main areas that put extra
burdens on translators, requiring them to make every effort to encode and
decode contextually based implicit information (Farghal 2012, 132).
To begin with, speech acts (Austin 1962) such as requesting, ordering,
threatening, warning, suggesting, permitting, and the like are universal.
However, each language has its own conventionalized ways to express
such speech acts, hence their non-universal cross-cultural application (cf.
Bentahila and Davies 1989; Farghal and Borini 1996, 1997; Abdel-Hafiz
2003; Hall 2008; Farghal 2012). For instance, while English customarily
employs conventionalized indirect speech acts to express orders or
requests, Arabic tends to utilize formulas containing religious references
for greeting and thanking, for example, (lit. blessing of God
upon you), as indirect speech acts (Al-Zoubi and Al-Hassnawi 2001,
22).
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6.2 Presuppositions
Wikipedia1 defines a pragmatic presupposition as an implicit assumption
about the world or background belief relating to an utterance whose truth
is taken for granted in discourse. Because presuppositions are background
1
105
assumptions that are pegged to certain lexical items or structures which are
called presupposition-triggers (e.g. definite expressions, iteratives, cleft
structures, etc.), one would assume that they can be captured quite easily
in translation. This is not always the case, however. Consider the two
excerpts below, the first translated from English and the second from
Arabic into English:
" : . (1)
(52 2011 10/9 27 ) ."
[And in this regard B. Roelen says: He had a naive idea indicating that it
(is) possible putting muscle cells in a test dish (in order) for them to grow,
and that if you spent money in this project, you will get meat within two
years]
(2) Youre right. Aisha laughed to relieve her tension and continued:
Theres a big difference between the death of the boy in the street
and this story. (Mahfouzs novel Palace Walk, p. 124)
The reader of the Arabic excerpt will understand that the author is
referring to an existing project, which is presupposed by the definite
expression this project. Similarly, the reader of the English
excerpt will take it that there was a boy who died in the street, which is
presupposed by the definite expression the death of the boy in the street.
What is surprising, however, is that neither of the presuppositions exists in
the STs, as can be observed below:
(3) He had a naive idea that you could put muscle cells in a petri dish and
they would just grow, and if you put money into a project, youd have
meat in a couple of years, says Bernard Roelen. (Scientific American
304 (6), p. 66)
:" " (4)
.
(Mahfouzs novel , p. 120)
[You have the right then laughing to reduce her heightened interest:
making up the death of a boy in the street (is) one thing, but this story is
another thing]
While the English text in (3) does not presuppose the existence of a project
but rather refers generically to any project involving the production of
meat in the laboratory, the Arabic text in (4) presupposes the making up
of the death of a boy in the street rather than the death of a boy in the
Chapter Six
106
As can be seen, the translators (Hutchins and Kenny 1990) have missed
the presupposition in the example above: viz. the utterance presupposes
that the addressee had been there before but this presupposition cannot
be retrieved from the English translation, which should read something
like What brought you here again?
Let us now look at one more area of presuppositions, namely clefting,
which involves more subtlety than definite expressions and iteratives.
English clefts exhibit a structural strategy which brings one constituent in
the sentence to contrastive focus. Consider the example below:
(7) It was noon when I hooked him, he said. (The Old Man and the Sea)
(1985 ) . (8)
[I fed her the hook at noon]
On the one hand, the adverbial noon is brought to focus by clefting in the
English sentence, thus giving rise to the presupposition that the speaker
hooked him at some time, and the cleft is meant to contrastively specify
the time of hooking the fish. The translator, however, has opted for an
unmarked word order in Arabic; hence the presupposition and the
contrastive focus are lost. To capture the focus, one would offer a
rendition like:
. (9)
[The time was noon when I fed her the hook]
Despite the fact that pragmatic presuppositions are clearly linked to certain
lexical items and structures, translators need to detect and capture them in
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108
Chapter Six
109
110
Chapter Six
Although Stewarts translation of the Arabic speech act relays the intended
illocutionary force, the high degree of directness it exhibits is unmotivated.
Gebel employs a formulaic speech act [Gebel wants to
be close to you] which implicitly performs the marriage proposal. The
translator, however, has opted for unpacking this illocution in his
rendering, something that is not congruent with Gebels state of hesitation
and tension accompanying the performance of that speech act indirectly.
Had the translator taken this into consideration, he would have offered a
rendition like I would like to ask your daughters hand. Such a rendering
embodies in a similarly formulaic manner a level of indirectness
comparable to that in the SL speech act.
Sometimes, the translators decision to omit formulaic speech acts that are
meant to enhance the phatic/interpersonal function would produce flat
translations that betray the authors emotive style. Consider the following
examples: (Al-Sanousi, The Echo of Kuwaiti Creativity (bilingual), 2006)
. . . . (20)
(16 2006 :) .""
[What Allah wills . . . Verily your pressure (is) better than my pressure.
Also the initial analyses indicate (the good news) that your heart is like a
lions heart]
(21) Your blood pressure is lower than mine and the initial analysis
shows a strong heart.
(22)
(13 2006 :) ."
[Sublime is the conditions changer as that troublemaker has changed a
lot, and were it not for that scar at the top of his forehead I would say he is
not Ali Faraj]
(23) He looked very different and if the scar on the top of his forehead
hadnt been there I wouldnt have known that it was actually Ali
Faraj.
The two omitted formulaic speech acts [what Allah wills] and
[sublime is the conditions changer] express reassurance
and amazement respectively. One wonders why the translator has chosen
to delete them despite the fact that they provide the utterances with an
important emotive tone. It should be noted that there are several options in
English that would render the illocutions of these two speech acts naturally.
The first lends itself to formulaic speech acts such as Thank God!, Good
111
news!, Touch wood!, and so on, and the second can be translated into
formulaic speech acts such as Goodness!, How amazing!, I cant
believe it, and so on. The rendition of interpersonal speech acts like these
preserves the emotive tone of discourse and renders the discourse more
coherent.
This section has shown that the appropriate management of speech acts
between Arabic and English is an important aspect of translation activity.
First, translators need to grasp the illocution of the speech act in the ST.
Then, they need to examine the similar speech acts in the TL in order to
choose one that performs the same illocution. In particular, utmost
attention should be given to the choice between a semantic and a
pragmatic rendering of a speech act. In this regard, the context of the
speech act plays a key role in the translators choice. Therefore, if the
semantic translation is not supported enough by the context, it needs to be
abandoned in favour of a pragmatic one. While a semantic treatment of
speech acts requires creative solutions to ensure adequacy and potential
acceptability in the TL for example, [May Allah lengthen
your age] may semantically be relayed as May you live long a
pragmatic approach needs a good knowledge of conventionalized speech
acts in the TL to ensure acceptability for example [Testify to the
oneness of Allah] where used to induce calm may be rendered as Calm
down, for Gods sake rather than semantically as Testify to the oneness of
God or Say God is one. The point here is that conventionalized speech
acts may converge or diverge between languages. When they diverge, they
may lend themselves to both a semantic and a pragmatic treatment
depending on potential transparency and acceptability in the TL.
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In this way, the ability to cope with implicated messages depends on the
assumption that the speaker is cooperative and invites the hearer to use
contextual features to arrive at the intended conversational implicatures.
Or, according to Sperber and Wilson (1986), this ability derives from the
general assumption that whatever is produced in the course of human
communication is relevant to one degree or another; hence the hearer
exerts every effort to process utterances in light of contextual features and,
as a result, deem them relevant. If the relevance of an utterance is too low,
the hearer will ask for an explicature/clarification such as I dont get you
or Will you spell out exactly what you mean?.
In terms of translation, translators need to give utmost care to floutings
whereby implicit messages are conveyed by way of conversational
implicature. Other things being equal, what is conversationally implicated
in the ST should remain conversationally implicated in the TT. Below are
113
As can be seen, both Arabic texts flout the maxim of quality by referring
to marriage by way of metaphor, thus conversationally implicating the
marriage interpretation. The translators (Hutchins and Kenny; Husni and
Newman, respectively) have employed different strategies. While the first
translation maintains the conversational implicature by using the same
metaphor, the second one reduces the metaphor to its communicative
import, thus changing an implicit message to an explicit one. The second
translation would have been more effective if it had maintained the
conversational implicature by investing the same metaphor in English.
In the natural practice of communication, the original writer sometimes
expresses just a part of the message, leaving the reader/translator, after
having accessed the network of conceptual relations which underlie the
surface text (Baker 1992, 218) and depending on his or her world
knowledge and experience, to complete the missing part of the message.
Following Blakemores (2002, 71) view, it is held here that the pragmatic
function, that is, conversational implicature, is only reflected when
translators go further than [what is explicitly written], and metarepresent
the [ST authors] thoughts about what he would think [is] relevant
enough. By way of illustration, let us consider the following example
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Chapter Six
Here, the speaker in the original extract flouts the maxim of quality, that
is, to speak the truth, by opting for a metaphorical expression
[Ill put you in my eyes and apply kohl (immediately) after that]
in order to communicate and emphasize her message, thereby giving rise
to a conversational implicature, that is, you are so dear and will be mine
forever. This conversational implicature derives from interpreting the
application of kohl in this context as locking the gate of a prison.
Apparently, the translator has detected the metaphorical implicature and its
intended meaning, and he probably has failed to find a functional
equivalent, that is, an equivalent that follows the TL linguistic and
cultural norms without jeopardising the communicative import of the
original text (Farghal 2012, 46). As a result, he has opted for what seemed
to him an ideational equivalent, that is, an equivalent that focuses on the
idea of the SL text independently of the form or function, thereby
observing the quality maxim (ibid., 47; emphasis his), albeit that it does
not reflect the same implicature. To explain, the implicature that conveys
dearness and possession is inadvertently changed into one of safety.
Apart from this problem, the translation is far less creative and aesthetic
than the original. It would be much more effective to find an English
metaphorical expression that embodies a similar implicature such as Ill
put you in my heart and lock you up there forever. Such a rendering
would satisfy TL norms as well as maintaining the conversational
implicature.
Problems relating to conversational implicature could be more serious in
translation, as can be illustrated in the English translation of the Arabic
excerpt below:
, p. 151) . . . . . . . " " (32)
(Mahfouz
[No mans eye fell on one of my (two) daughters . . .
Congratulations . . . Congratulations Mrs. Amina]
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In his translation (The Thief and the Dogs), Elyas should have paid special
attention to the adjacent tautological expressions
[Courage is courage] and [And death is death] (for more
details on tautologies, see Grice 1975; Wierzbicka 1987; Farghal 1992),
because they are intended to give rise to competing conversational
implicatures by the way they are employed by the two interactants. The
translator, however, has rendered them into what seems to be English
tolerance tautologies, viz. Courage is courage and Death is death,
respectively. A careful examination of the above exchange reveals that the
translators interpretation is far-fetched as neither of the characters is
calling for tolerance of the adverse, natural consequences of the referents
in question. One should note that the two Arabic tautologies refer to the
standards of two human attributes, that is, courage and death, each in
its own way. To explain, the producer of the first tautology wants to
communicate the implicature that courage has been the same all along,
that is, there are familiar standards set throughout the ages. Similarly, the
speaker of the second tautology asserts that death is subject to a similar
set of standards, but he conversationally implicates that death is too dear
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Chapter Six
() . :() (43)
:
. . . :
119
All the responses in (B) flout the maxim of relation as none of them
directly addresses the question in (A). However, we consider all of them as
relevant answers to the question and, as a result, we smoothly arrive at the
intended conversational implicatures. Below is an Arabic translation of the
above examples, which would make sense in Arabic as much as it does in
English:
: (46)
(1 :
! (2
. (3
. (4
(5
. (6
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Chapter Six
Iago: Did Michael Cassio, when you wood my lady, know of your love?
Oth: He did, from first to last. Why dost thou ask?
Iago: But for the satisfaction of my thought; No further harm.
Oth: Why of thy thought, Iago?
Iago: I did not think he had been acquainted with her.
Oth: Oh, yes; and went between us very oft.
Iago: Indeed?
Oth: Indeed? Ay, Indeed! Discernst thou aught in that? Is he not honest?
Iago: Honest, my lord?
Oth: Honest? Ay, honest.
Iago: My lord, for aught I know.
Oth: What dost thou think?
Iago: Think, my lord?
Oth: Think, my lord? By heaven, he echoes me,
The translator of the above conversation into Arabic needs to give utmost
attention to the conversational implicatures that Iago is communicating.
Any mishap in the wording of the utterances encapsulating these
implicatures could do serious damage to the subtlety and coherence of this
text. Below is a suggested Arabic translation where the subtleties are
maintained:
- : (50)
:
:
. :
. :
:
. :
. :
:
! :
:
. :
. :
:
:
:
[Iago: O my noble lord Oth: What do you want to say, o Iago?
Iago: Did Michael Cassio while you wooed my mistress know about your
love for her?
Oth: Yes, from the beginning of the story to its end. Why are you posing
this question?
Iago: Only for the relief of my idea, just for that.
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6.5 Politeness
The pragmatic issue of politeness might also place extra pressure on
translators. The concept of politeness in this respect does not refer to being
polite or impolite; it is linked to Goffmans original work (1955) on the
sociological notion of face. To understand the relevance of politeness to
linguistic expressions, we have to first become acquainted with the notion
of face. Face is defined by Brown and Levinson (1978/1987, 61) as a
public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself. To put
this differently, face refers to the emotional and social sense of self that
everyone has and expects everyone else to recognize (Yule 1996, 60).
There are two types of face: positive face and negative face. Positive face
is the persons desire to be liked, or, at least, accepted, and treated by
others without social barriers. Negative face, for its part, is the persons
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123
(53)
:
:
.
[And she hurried to the luxurious east hall and stood before Uncle Mohsen
confused until the man murmured with a troubled heart:
- May Allah have mercy on us, whats behind you?
She whispered after hesitating:
A strange creature o uncle Mohsen]
(54) She hurried to the luxurious east wing of the clinic to look for
Mohsen. When he saw the anxious look on the midwifes face, he
murmured in a worried tone:
May God have Mercy on us! Whats happened? She hesitated, and
whispered:
Its a strange creature Mr Mohsen.
Chapter Six
124
Alternatively, they could have offered You're quite right, sir, thus
capturing the status difference without referring to the job of the
interlocutor, that is, officer, which can be recovered from the context.
Given what is at stake, therefore, the translators task is not confined to
just determining the referential meaning, that is, the locutionary act.
Rather, it covers the detection of the implicit meaning behind the facevalue interpretation of the locutionary act, that is, the illocutionary force as
well as its effect on the receptors, that is, the perlocutionary effect (cf.
Hatim and Mason 1990; Emery 2004).
Politeness maxims (Leech 1983) may differ in the frequency of adherence
to them from one culture to another. For example, while Japanese people
tend to downgrade the complimented item, thus adhering to the modesty
maxim (minimize praise to self), Arabs and Anglo-Americans tend to
accept compliments at face value, thus giving more weight to the
agreement maxim (maximize agreement with other). Likewise, some
conventionalized responses to compliments may differ among cultures
within the bounds of the same maxim. For example, it is customary in
Arabic to offer the complimented item or compliment the eyes of the
complimenter in return. However, normative compliment responses such
as Its all yours for // or Your eyes are beautiful for
are not usually available in English (for more on this, see Farghal and
Al-Khatib 2001; Farghal and Haggan 2006). In this regard, translators
125
As can be seen, Stewart has done well by relaying the illocutions of the
politeness formulas following the conventionalized norms of the TL. It
would have been unacceptable to render them into May God protect your
status, O veiler, and with happiness and cure, respectively. Such
renderings would deviate from TL norms and, consequently, mar the
translation in terms of acceptability rather than adequacy. Adequacy, it
should be noted, is usually given a back seat in the context of
conventionalized forms, whereas it occupies a front seat in the context of
implicit meaning, which creatively and subtly sails away from
conventionalized forms.
To conclude this section, one should note that politeness and indirectness
are usually interrelated. However, there are three variables governing their
relationship: power, distance, and rate of imposition. Sometimes, therefore,
an utterance that may formally appear to be very polite may turn out to be
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Chapter Six
Stewart has recognized the hidden illocution of the Arabic polite form and
rendered it accordingly, albeit somewhat flatly. A more congruent
rendering would be You wont get much peace, which is more formulaic
and effective.
6.6 Conclusion
The present chapter has shown through discussion of authentic translation
examples the importance of pragmatic meanings in human communication.
The pragmatics of translation basically involves capturing indirectness in
discourse, which mainly includes pragmatic phenomena such as
presuppositions, speech acts, conversational implicatures, and politeness.
It has been shown that such phenomena, whether they derive from the
contextually-based interpretation of conventionalized forms or from purely
human reasoning, present challenging tasks to translators. Therefore, there
is a dire need to alert translation practitioners as well as translation trainees
to the various aspects of pragmatic meanings and the available strategies
to deal with them. Only then will a translator be able to offer a product that
127
CHAPTER SEVEN
SEMIOTIC DIMENSION AND TRANSLATION
7.1 Overview
In order to communicate with each other, people normally use language.
However, their messages are not transmitted only via the use of the
vocabulary of these languages. Rather, they make significant use of signs,
symbols, sounds and other means to convey their messages (Mahmoud
2005, 74). To study how people make sense of their experience of the
world and how cultures share and give currency to this understanding, one
needs to adopt a semiotic approach (Grutman 2009, 261). According to
Grutman (ibid., 260), semiotics is a theory of how we produce, interpret
and negotiate meaning through signs. In this regard, Faiq and Sabry (2013,
47) hold that semiotics is the study of the methods in which local
populations communicate through signs and symbols that are obviously
influenced by cultural traditions. It is worth noting that there is no single or
comprehensive theory of semiotics. However, two semiotic models,
originated in the nineteenth century, are widely used as the basis for the
study of semiotics. The first model was introduced by de Saussure (known
as structural semiotics). The second model was proposed by Peirce (known
as interpretive semiotics). These two models are central in discussions of the
origins of semiotics in both American and European traditions (for more
details, see Grutman 2009, 260; Faiq and Sabry 2013, 47).
129
form of the sign, and that signified, that is, the mental concept of the sign,
can only be applied to linguistic materials. He focuses only on the
linguistic signs as two-fold entities which exist only by virtue of the
association of the signifier and the signified. The relationship between
these two elements is conventional: that is, the socio-cultural conventions
have a crucial role in determining such a relationship. In other words, to
generate the required relationship between any signifier and its signified,
people should use words, phrases, and the like to refer to what people have
been used to. Otherwise, the relationship will not work unless a relevant
context is constructed to support the new relationship (Al-Shehari 2001,
121). Saussures definition places restrictions on the concept of the sign,
excluding other social phenomena from having their own signs in any
interaction. In her critique of Saussures approach, Adab (1997, 159160)
rightly comments:
In stating that the description of sign function has to arise from faits de
parole or language in use, Saussure does not, however, take into account
variations in meaning which can arise from idiolect at the level of
individual or of sub-group within a given socio-linguistic group (cf.
Pergnier), individual intention in specific contextual use.
To demonstrate the limitations of the concept of the sign and its inability
to deal with the complexities of cross-culture communication according to
Saussures view (Hatim and Mason 1990, 106; Adab 1997, 159;
Mahmoud 2005, 78), the following example, quoted from Jandrs story
An Old Tale (1997, 21) will be considered:
. (1)
. . .
[The ftiha (the first sura/chapter in the Holy Quran) ceremony was held in
the open. A large crowd of men had sat down close to one another in the
form of a large circle . . .]
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131
132
Chapter Seven
Translative thinking is a semiotic process in which something stands for
something else, in which different sign systems are related, in which one
sign is more fully developed, enriched, criticized, put at a distance, placed
between inverted commas, parodied or simply imitated, and, in any case
interpreted in terms of another sign.
133
To apply these stages, the following example quoted from Jandrs story
An Old Tale (1997, 22) can be considered:
(4)
[Anyway I found myself years ago amid a large number of Bedouins in a
gathering of mourning held for the soul of a man with whose son I have a
close friendship]
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Chapter Seven
(7) O Prophet, when you divorce women, divorce them when they have
reached their period. Count the period. (Arberry 1955/1996, Vol. 2, p.
284)
Here, the sign that functions iconically is [the filth of the world];
in this context, it recalls another signifier, that is, or money,
which refers to the same signified. In other words, the expression
in this context refers to a physical referent in the real world (a
constellation of objects) as well as invoking in the mind of the
hearer/reader the image of money. So, the relationship between the
object and the image of money is what Peirce calls interpretant, which
works as a sign (see above). As it is difficult to find a TL sign with the
same iconic function, the translators have fallen back on the symbolic
function, that is, the association between the TL sign and the signified
amongst the users of the TL. That is, they have opted for a generalizing
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Chapter Seven
(13) Here, caddie. He hit. They went away across the pasture. I held to
the fence and watched them going away.
Taking into account such a stylistic feature, that is, paronomasia on the
one hand, and treating the lexical item as a sign, the translator has opted
for transliteration supported by a footnote:
. . ."* " (14)
.
[ "" ]
[Give (it me) o caddie*. And he hit. They moved away through the
pasture. I held to the fence and started watching them moving away]
[The caddie is the boy who carries the Golf sticks for players]
Here, although the translator has succeeded in dealing with the word
caddie as a sign, he has failed to create in the mind of the TL reader a
similar mental image to that which has been conjured up in the mind of the
ST reader as here, caddie is different from [Give (it me) o
caddie] Give it me, caddie. To do so, he could have opted for
[Here o caddie] Here, caddie or [Now o caddie] Now, caddie.
Let us now consider our last example of semiotic identities that need
special treatment in the nexus of translation. The extract below is quoted
from Mahfouzs (1959/1986, 245) Children of the Alley and
translated by Theroux (1996, 201):
: (15)
. ! [And uncle Shafii shouted warning:
Hey you! For the walls (there are) ears, if they heard you, you wouldnt
find anyone to say in the name of Allah upon you]
(16) Please everyone! The walls have ears. If they hear you, no one will
listen to a word you have to say, Shafii warned.
In (15) there are two signs that need special treatment, that is,
[for walls there are ears] and [anyone to say in the name of
Allah upon you]. To begin with, the first expression is normally
used to warn someone that it is not safe to utter any single word at that
particular time because the conversation may be overheard. It so happens
that both languages, Arabic and English, linguistically conceptualize and
utilize such a socio-cultural activity in a similar way. From a semiotic
point of view, as the SL sign and TL sign refer to particular referents in the
real world, viz. wall and ear along with the relational process expressed
137
7.4 Conclusion
To conclude this chapter, languages perceive and map socio-cultural
activities and world experiences in different ways. Such differences
between the signifying systems of languages require translators to use their
utmost effort to reconcile any cultural clashes or encounters by
transferring most, if not all, semiotic properties of the ST word or phrase
under certain equivalence conditions to do with semiotic codes,
pragmatic action and general communicative requirements (Hatim and
Mason 1990, 105). However, Al-Rubaii (1996, 109) states that such a
semiotic translation should be carried out with care lest it should distort
the texture of the TT. From a semiotic point of view, and as the
discussion has shown, when translators try to exert their utmost efforts to
reflect the semiotic properties of the ST sign alongside their elements, viz.
iconic, indexical, and symbolic, the resulting equivalent is one of five
possibilities:
1. it is an optimal equivalent where a happy coincidence occurs between
the SL sign and TL sign;
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Chapter Seven
CHAPTER EIGHT
STYLISTIC CONSIDERATIONS
AND TRANSLATION
8.1 Overview
Many attempts in the field of translation studies have been made to touch
on style over quite some time now (see for example Nida 1964; Venuti
2000; Ghazala 2011; Bassnett 1980; Huang 2011; Almanna 2013).
However, formulating a rigorous definition of what style exactly is
remains ambiguous in nature, and the investigation is still unsystematic. In
this regard, Boase-Beier (2006, 1) comments: From the earliest writings
about translation, such as those of Cicero or Horace, style has often been
mentioned but . . . its role has rarely been systematically explored. Yet
style is central to the way we construct and interpret texts. Snell-Hornby
(1995, 119) holds that any attempt to discuss style will be considered
unsatisfactory, since first no coherent theoretical approach is attempted
and second the problem of style recedes perceptibly into the background.
Style (derived from the Latin word stylus meaning stake or pointed
instrument for writing), obviously, is the object of study for stylistics. But
what does stylistics mean? In order to be in a position to define stylistics,
one needs to define style first as any definition of the former concept
would depend on a definition of the other. Building on an assumption that
within any language system (phonetics, graphology, semantics, grammar
(morphology and syntax), and pragmatics) the same proposition can be
encoded in various linguistic forms, that is, styles, one can derive a better
understanding of style. To put this differently, the same idea can be
communicated in more than one way, thereby presenting a variability at
the level of, let us say, the intonation, type of writing, word and/or
expression choice, morphological and syntactic organization, and
illocutionary force of an utterance. Style is defined by Leech and Short
(1981, 1011) as the linguistic habits of a particular writer . . ., genre,
period, school. Style is seen by other stylisticians as the dress of
thought (Hough 1969, 3). Formalists, however, define style as a
deviation from language norms. It is also claimed to be an expression and
reflection of the personality of the author, hence the adage style is man,
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141
Having formed a clear picture of what style exactly means, now let us shift
our focus of attention towards the other concept, that is, stylistics. In its
straightforward meaning, stylistics is the study of style. Having consulted
and discussed a number of definitions of stylistics (for example
Widdowson 1975; Leech and Short 1981; Carter 1982; Brumfit and Carter
1986; Fabb et al 1987; Short 1988; Toolan 1992; 1998; Verdonk and
Webber 1995; Wright and Hope 1996; Simpson 2004; Boase-Beier 2006),
Ghazala (2011, 18) concludes the following points about stylistics:
1. It is a branch of linguistics;
2. It is a language-based approach;
3. Its major concentration is on the analysis of literary texts of all genres
and classes, whether canonical or non-canonical; however, it is an
approach that can be applied to the analysis of other text types;
4. It is a combination of linguistic/structural patterns (i.e. stylistic features)
and the implied meanings (or functions) produced by them;
5. It involves all types of stylistic choices at the different levels of
language: lexical, grammatical, and phonological in particular.
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drawing evidence from the text to support the argument for the important
stylistic features and their functions, it loses some of its appeal of
objectivity and becomes independent and subjective. This is because
people (be they readers, analysts, translators, or critics) are different in
terms of their set of skills and competences, their socio-cultural
backgrounds, their political and cultural commitments, their accumulated
value system, the kind of information stored in their minds, their intuitive
response and literary appreciation, and so on.
By adopting a style-based approach that can draw on the four stylistic
approaches discussed above, translators, as special text readers, can easily
derive a better understanding and appreciation of texts, in particular
literary texts. Stylistics not only attempts to understand the linguistic
foundations of the style in texts, in terms of the manner of expression or
technique or craft of writing, but also lays emphasis on the language
function of texts, in particular literary texts (cf. Toolan 1998, ix; Huang
2011, 59). Stylistics, therefore, seriously tries to put the discussion of
textual effects and techniques on a public, shared footing a footing as
shared and established and inspectable as is available to informed
language-users (Toolan, 1998, ix). It provides us with a linguistic
perspective to comprehend and appreciate the linguistic features that the
original writers deliberately and consciously try to resort to, despite the
availability of other alternative options. This attunes well with BoaseBeiers (2006, 1) view:
Firstly, in the actual process of translation, the way the style of the source
text is viewed will affect the translators reading of the text. Secondly,
because the recreative process in the target text will also be influenced by
the sorts of choices the translator makes, and style is the outcome of choice
(as opposed to those aspects of language which are not open to option), the
translators own style will become part of the target text. And, thirdly, the
sense of what style is will affect not only what the translator does but how
the critic of translation interprets what the translator has done.
143
.. .. (1)
. ... ...
[Where (is) the refuge?? He wants to open his (two) wings and flee from
his thirst .. and from the boundaries of his feelings .. from the nudity of his
pains ... He wants to soar where there (is) nobody ... nobody at all]
In this example, one can easily identify, interpret and appreciate a number
of stylistic features, viz. an elliptical rhetorical question [where the
refuge], the parallel structures in .. ..
[from his thirst .. from the boundaries of his feelings .. from the nudity of
his pains], the repetition of the lexical item [(he) wants], and the
repetition of the phrase [no one]. Here, these stylistic features are not
used randomly by the original writer, but rather they are chosen
deliberately and consciously. Therefore, they are supposed to have
particular functions. Resorting to a rhetorical question, for example, the
original writer might attempt to get her readers physically involved in the
situation or she might try to let them ponder over a particular refuge when
being in a similar situation. Opting for lexical repetition in parallel
structures, the writer might try to invoke in the mind of her reader different
thoughts and images. Further, in an attempt to emphasize the fact that
there will be nobody there at all, she resorts to a phrasal repetition
[where (is) no one]. Fully considering these stylistic features, along
with their functions, one can render it as follows:
(2) Where to go? He wants to spread his wings and escape from his thirst,
from the boundaries of his feelings, from the nudity of his pains; he
wants to soar where nobody is, nobody at all.
One should note that the suggested translation has preserved the stylistic
features in the ST, viz. the elliptical rhetorical question, the parallel
structures, the creative metaphors, and the functional repetition. The only
modification has taken place in the lexis of the rhetorical question, that is,
the option for synonymy (to go instead of to seek refuge) and verbalizing
the noun (to go instead of refuge) in order to preserve the elliptical
structure as well as the tone. A rendering like Where is the refuge?
would sound flat in tone and as a generic rather than a rhetorical question,
while renderings like Where can he find a refuge or even Is there a
refuge would miss the abrupt ellipsis in the SL rhetorical question as well
as mitigate the despairing tone in that question. Thus, the preservation of
stylistic features can fluctuate between formal equivalence and functional
equivalence. The first option, of course, is to maintain both form and
function if that is possible at all. Otherwise, functional options become
necessary.
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First, this example involves lexical repetition which needs special attention.
The lexical item to carry is used in juxtaposed parallel structures and
joined by the connector and: The man carried the . . . and the boy
147
[He wasnt wanting (didnt want) to think of any specific thing, as the
scene intoxicated him and but when they turned going back the man
heaped a sigh of relief, and perhaps he mumbled some speech he couldnt
recall then]
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(13) He didnt want to think of anything in particular. The vision had
intoxicated him. But when they turned around to go back, the man
sighed deeply. He may have mumbled some words he couldnt recall
later. (p. 62)
As can be seen, the translator has changed the relationship between the
first sentence and the following one dramatically when opting for the
connector then in What muddled him was the ladys height, good looks,
attractive face and beauty, her enticing presence and seductive walk. Then
she laughed quietly while chatting with her fair sister. First, the action of
laughing was excluded from what muddled him, and second, the sequence
of the events was changed. He could have used the connector as well as
149
as in as well as her quiet laughter while she was chatting with her blonde
sister. From a stylistic viewpoint, there is an example of climax, that is,
arranging words, phrases, and clauses according to their increasing
importance (cf. Corbett 1971, 476; Al-Rubaii 1996, 86). Such a stylistic
feature needs to be given full consideration by the translator, but
unfortunately he has paid no attention to the arrangement of the
clauses/sentences in an order of increasing importance. Further, climax is
accompanied by a deliberate omission of some of the connectors, that is,
asyndeton [took him by surprise
disjointed him rather cancelled his existence and made him almost
nothing], as well as a lack of punctuation marks among these
clauses/sentences. The omission of punctuation marks is on purpose; it is
one of the rhetorical devices employed by the writer to hasten
psychologically the pace of the experience depicted (Shen 1987, 186).
Had the translator taken such stylistic features into account, he could have
produced a rendering such as But the sight took him by surprise . . .
rocked him . . . rather obliterated his existence and made him almost
nothing.
To further demonstrate how not taking into account the deliberate and
conscious selections made by the original writer may create a misleading
mental image in the minds of the TL readers, let us consider the following
excerpt (16) quoted from Choukris novel (2000, 171172; 6th
edition) and translated by Bowles into For Bread Alone (1993, 128):
: (16)
. :
. . [The waiter retreated and said to me:
- Kebdani died.
I said in a weak voice, opening my eyes, pushing my mouth open:
- Died?
- Yes died. May Allah have mercy on him]
(17) After he had gone away, Kandoussi resumed talking.
Poor Kebdani. Hes dead.
My eyes and mouth opened widely. Dead I repeated weakly.
Yes, he said. Hes dead. Allah irhamou.
Drawing a direct comparison between the ST and TT, one can easily put
ones finger on the translators failure to interpret and appreciate the
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Apart from the modification of the fishs gender (from male to female,
which has been adopted throughout the translation of the novella), Munr
Baalbak has employed two highly elevated expressions here, viz.
[struggle] and [wheres my verse], which are not congruent
with the simple narrative style in the ST. The first expression is highly
formal corresponding to her struggle in English, which does not describe
151
In (21), the translator has failed to deal with the symbolic representation in
two serious ways. Firstly, he has destroyed the symbolism embodied in the
uniqueness of the referents which the poet employs, that is, my
rose and my step when rendering them as my roses and my
steps, respectively. One should note that the poet utilizes these common
nouns in reference to unique entities: viz. my rose symbolizes Palestine
(his occupied homeland) and my steps symbolizes his infancy.
Unfortunately, the translation relegates these poetic symbols to mere
references to common belongings. Secondly, the modality of the discourse
presented by the translator is significantly different from that entertained
by the poet. To explain, the translation views the return in terms of
general obligation if I have to return, thus calling into question the
cherished desire to return to occupied land, whereas the poet envisions the
return as a remote possibility if I were to return while
maintaining this long-cherished desire. As is clear, we have two different
styles which embrace considerably diverging discourses and worlds.
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153
8.3 Conclusion
The discussion of the above examples along with their translations clearly
shows the effects of the translators appreciation of stylistic features on his
or her work. The moment translators identify and appreciate stylistic
features, their progress will automatically slow down in an attempt to
ponder over the available strategies, on the one hand, and the amount of
loss that may occur through the nexus of translation on the other. This feat
may be achieved only when translators, first, can develop an analytical and
evaluating competence that enables them to analyse and appreciate
stylistic features, and second, can transfer competence that enables them to
prioritize the competing elements with a minimum of loss. It has been
shown that in order to be in a position to render literary texts effectively
and accurately, translators need to
1. analyse and describe varieties of language;
2. identify and discern all important aesthetical aspects of text and thus
interpret and appreciate texts;
3. activate processes and experiences of reading along with their intuitive
responses to the text at hand; and
4. activate all aspects of knowledge stored in their minds on language,
text-typological demands, generic conventions, and the sociological
roles of participants in the real world and in text, cultural environment,
and so on.
Further, it has been shown from data analysis that translators can easily
derive a better understanding and appreciation of texts, in particular
literary texts, when adopting a style-based approach that can draw on the
four stylistic approaches, viz. linguistic stylistics, literary stylistics,
affective stylistics, and cognitive stylistics. It has also been shown that
stylistics as an approach is objective in terms of drawing evidence from
the text to support arguments for the importance of stylistic features and
their functions. However, it loses some of its objectivity as people are
different in their socio-cultural backgrounds, their political and cultural
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CHAPTER NINE
COMMUNICATIVE DIMENSION
AND TRANSLATION
9.1 Overview
A framework to study language variation was proposed first by Halliday,
McIntosh, and Strevens (1964, 7794). They hold that language has many
functions and takes different shapes according to the situation in which it
is used (ibid., 87). A year later, Catford (1965, 83) supported the idea of
having a framework of categories for the classification of sub-languages,
or varieties within a total language. As such, language variation is
classified into two main categories: user-related varieties, that is, dialects,
and use-related varieties, that is, registers.
9.2 Dialect
User-related variations in language, that is, dialects, are based on the
users contribution to the text. Such variations occur due to, for example,
the geographical, temporal, social, idiolectal, standard, and non-standard
uses of language (cf. Gregory and Carroll 1978; Hatim and Mason 1990).
To begin with, geographical variations refer to varieties used in a
particular geographical area, for example the Egyptian dialect, the Iraqi
dialect, the Syrian dialect, and so on. Temporal variations, however, refer
to varieties used in a particular period. Some lexical items, for instance,
were acceptable in a certain period, but they have either died out or
evolved new meanings over time. An example of this is the lexical item
petty which was used to mean slow in Macbeth; however, it now means
trivial (Hatim and Mason 1990, 42). In some cases, the primary meaning
of a word becomes a secondary one and a new sense claims primacy. For
example nowadays, gay has the sense of homosexual as its primary
meaning and happy as its secondary one. Social variations refer to
varieties used by members of a specific group or community, for example,
Arabic used in cities as opposed to Arabic in the countryside. Closely
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: () .
!!
[She said: My father will certainly repeat the same record about lateness.
Their father was not there so their feelings calmed down. They heard the
movement of their mother in the kitchen, (A) said addressing her mother:
youths are undulating in the street like jasmine shrubs, damn their father
how beautiful they are]
(2) She said, our father will be angry about our coming home late. But
their father wasnt there and they relaxed. They heard their mother
bustling in the kitchen and Miss A said, addressing her mother, there
were a lot of youths undulating in the street like jasmine shrubs. Gee,
what a handsome bunch of boys they are!
157
The translator in the above example has chosen the Egyptian Arabic
vernacular for the flower girl as opposed to Standard Arabic for Higgins
in order to reflect differences in social class and education. Other things
being equal, one should note that Standard Arabic is a marker of a good
education, whereas vernacular Arabic is a marker of a lack of literacy. Not
only does the translator take care of this socially significant distinction, but
he also invests a key linguistic feature of social significance within the
Egyptian vernacular: viz. he has chosen the pharyngealized velar /G/,
which is a shibboleth of countryside (Upper Egypt) speech in Egypt, as
opposed to the glottal stop /'/, which is the hallmark of urban Egyptian
Arabic, to represent the standard Arabic uvular /q/. Thus, the flower girl
pronounces the words mabit'uul as mabitGuul, 'ultli as Gultli, and 'u'udi
as 'uGudi. Also, the flower girl uses vernacular lexical items, for example
zay instead of kamaa 'like' and dana instead of 'anaa 'I'. By
contrast, Higgins speech is characterized by standard grammatical
features, for example the use of the interrogative particle hal (which is
never used in vernacular Arabic), as well as lexical features, for example
naduu invite, li-l-juluus to sit down, and nulqii to
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In contrast with the above example where the translator has employed an
Arabic vernacular (Egyptian Arabic) familiar to most Arabic native
speakers to reflect socially significant nuances, Ihsan Aabbas (1998) has
chosen a highly localized Sudanese Arabic vernacular to represent the
speech of poor and uneducated black characters in Melvilles (1851)
Moby-Dick. Consider the following excerpt in which Flask (the old black
man) addresses the sharks:
(6) Fellow-critters: Ise ordered here to say dat you must stop dat dam
noise dare. You hear?
. : (7)
[Brothers creatures: I am ordered to say that you stop that damn noise
there. You hear?]
159
One can clearly see that the mishandling of an idiolectal feature has caused
serious damage to the coherence of the translation on two grounds. Firstly,
it is inconceivable in a face-to-face encounter for one to ask whether the
interlocutor is carrying a rifle, for it would be clearly visible to him or her.
Secondly, it is inconceivable for an adult English native speaker to not
understand what the word rifle means. Being the translator, I
[Farghal] should mention that it is the reviewer and/or commissioner who
edited my original translation in (10) below into the translation above
without consulting me.
. . (10)
. .
.
...
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[But you should go with me. Youll be all right.
- How could I know that youre one of the good people?
- You wont know. You must take the risk.
- Are you carrying the fire now?
- Am I what?
- Carrying the fire.
- You have lost your mind, havent you?
- No . . .]
161
The temporal factor may impose some constraints on the translator. Quran
translators, for example, tend to employ an archaic variety of English in an
attempt to preserve the literariness and sanctity of the text. Consider the
following Quranic verse along with Pickthals (1930/2006) translation:
(8 ) . (13)
[You come to men lustfully instead of women rather you are an
extravagant folk]
(14) Lo! ye come with lust unto men instead of women. Nay, but ye are
wanton folk.
One can readily note the archaic structure and vocabulary used, viz. Lo,
ye, unto, and nay, which is indicative of a bygone period of time.
Sometimes, the temporal factor may confuse Quran translators. For
example, the word shahd in Quranic Arabic could mean either a
martyr or a witness, depending on the context. However, it could only
mean a martyr in Modern Standard Arabic. This shift in the meaning of
the word may prove problematic to some Quran translators. Witness how
the two translations below are based on different premises due to the
confusion caused by the said semantic shift:
(15) O you who believe! Take your precautions, then advance in groups,
or advance all together. Lo! among you there is he who loiters; and if
disaster overtook you, he would say: Allah has been gracious unto
me since I was not present with them. (Pickthall 1930/2006, p. 78)
(16) O believers, take your precautions; then move forward in companies,
or move forward all together. Some of you there are that are dilatory
[sic.]; then, if an affliction visits you, he says, God has blessed me,
in that I was not a martyr with them. (Arberry 1955/1996, Vol. 1, p.
110)
9.3 Register
Register is defined by Halliday (1978, 23) as the set of meanings, the
configuration of semantic patterns, that are typically drawn upon under the
specific conditions, along with the words and structures that are used in
the realization of these meanings. So, from a communicative point of
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163
process of doing (e.g. The boy asked his father = actor + process +
goal)
process of behaving (e.g. She laughed at what he said = behaver +
process + phenomenon)
process of sensing (e.g. I have got what you mean = sensor + process
+ phenomenon)
process of being (e.g. My father is a doctor = identified + process +
identifier)
process of existing (e.g. There are a lot of books on the table =
existent + process + circumstance)
Here, the translator has failed in dealing with the process types, thus
creating a misleading as well as an inaccurate mental picture. From a
Hallidayan transitivity point of view, that is, considering how to express
the mental picture that we have of the reality around us and how to express
our own world experiences linguistically, the source extract can be
understood as comprising two clauses joined by the preposition with:
-
The two sets of knives and forks and spoons (identified) + were
(process of being) + in his pocket (circumstance)
a paper napkin (goal) + wrapped (process of doing) + around each set
(circumstance) + [by somebody] (actor).
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164
-
Here, the trainee translator has failed to decipher the participants and their
exact roles in the process when changing one of the participants
dramatically from US nationals into US forces, thus creating a
misleading as well as an inaccurate mental image.
To further demonstrate the impact of (not) taking the register into account,
let us discuss the following authentic example quoted from Karm Abids
story () The Passion of Lady A and translated by Eric Winkel
(2010, 6564; bilingual edition):
(21)
.
[And in the midst of these thoughts, nothing caused disturbance in her
inside except for her fathers brief pieces of advice and his big anxiety
which his worrying eyes cant hide for reasons she couldnt understand,
165
she kept trying all the time to make him understand that she loves him as
she loves nobody else]
(22) Caught up in these thoughts, no concerns crept into her, except for
off the cuff lectures from her father, and the intricate worries he hid
from her, which she could see in his eyes, stirred up for reasons she
could not understand. She kept trying to make him see that she loved
him as she loved no one else.
In the translation of the first part of the above extract, the translator, to a
certain degree, has effectively managed to offer an equivalent text that
reflects the variables of register, the language function, the lexical choices,
and the verb aspects. However, in the translation of the second part, for no
obvious reason, he has changed the participants of the process of doing in
that his anxious eyes couldnt hide into he hid
from her, thus changing an involuntary act (i.e. something reflected in his
eyes) into a deliberate one. To remedy this transitivity mishap, a
translation like the one in (23) below could be offered:
(23) Caught up in these thoughts, no concerns crept into her, except for
off the cuff lectures from her father, and the intricate worries that his
anxious eyes could not hide for reasons she could not understand.
She kept trying to make him see that she loved him as she loved no
one else.
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made consistently with such status and relations. In a similar vein, AlRubaii (1996, 64) comments that the actual selections made in a
particular language event constitute the tenor of that particular discourse.
To put this differently, by analysing the tenor of the text, one can know
the type of author and the type of audience as well as the relationship
between the author and his or her audience. So, the tenor of a given text,
according to Bell (1991, 186188) can be signalled via four overlapping
scales of level:
1. Personalization, as opposed to impersonalization, refers to the presence
of the writer, on the one hand, and reader, on the other, in the text.
2. Accessibility, as opposed to inaccessibility, refers to the amount of
information that is assumingly shared by the writer and the intended
reader.
3. Politeness covers the linguistic devices utilized by participants to show
their awareness of the face of others, whether negative or positive
(for more details, see chapter six).
4. Formality, as opposed to informality, refers to how much attention the
writer or speaker gives to the structuring of the message.
By way of illustration, let us consider the following example quoted from
Graham Greenes novel The Honorary Consul (1975) along with its
translation by Ata Abdulwahhab (1986) cited in Farghal (2008, 10;
emphasis his):
(24) You never intended to be found out. It was cheaper for you, wasnt it,
not having to pay for your fucks.
. (25)
[And you didnt intend absolutely to have your affair discovered, it was
cheaper for you not to pay wages for your sleeping with her]
Here, in discussing the reflection of the exact degree of formality in the TT,
one may cast doubt on the quality of the above rendition. Analysing the ST
in terms of its degree of formality gives the translator some useful hints on
the social distance between the two characters even though no address
terms are used. Taking into account the range of semiological options in
the interpersonal components suggested by Gregory (1988, 3089; also
discussed in Al-Rubaii 2005, 1822), such as speech function (e.g.
comments, directive, etc.), users turn (initiating or not initiating, etc.),
social distance (e.g. address terms), interlocutor assessment (e.g. tag
questions, right?, etc.) and mediation (e.g. probably, fortunately,
etc.), one may question the omission of the tag question in the ST, namely
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The reader can readily observe the elevated formal tenor in the translation,
which markedly contrasts with the down-to-earth simple narrative in the
original. If one is to reproduce the same level of tenor in English, a TT
such as (31) would be offered:
(31) The sheikh imbibed his coffee leisurely. It was all that would enter
his abdomen all day long, and he knew well that he was in bad need
of it.
169
. " :[ ] (34)
."
[[Luster said [in a vernacular spoken by black people]: Listen to yourself
now. Isnt it strange that you thirty-three years in your age, and you
continue in this way]
In his written mode of discourse, the original writer tries to indicate the
characters way of speaking, viz. Listen at you, now and Aint you
something, thirty three years old, going on that way . . ., which creates
extra challenges for the translator. In an attempt to reflect the mode of
discourse, the translator has added between square brackets the phrase
[in a vernacular spoken by black people]. It is worth
noting that writers, in particular literary writers, sometimes tend to mix
written and spoken modes of discourse in their writing in an attempt to
bring about a realistic illusion. In this regard, Leech and Short (1981; also
discussed in Al-Rubaii 2005, 1012) stress that there are five notions of
realism that may help in bringing out the realistic illusion. These are
verisimilitude, credibility, authenticity, objectivity, and vividness.
Apart from mistranslating the Black American English expression Listen
at you, now, meaning Look at yourself now in Standard English,
examining what the translator has done in the above example, one can
readily see that the dynamics created by the mode of discourse in the ST is
largely lost in the TT. The parenthetical material provided by the translator
does little, if anything at all, to capture the significance of this mode of
discourse. One could imagine better solutions whereby the substandard
varieties such as black English could be relayed in vernacular Arabic,
especially in cases where the ST differentiates between the standard
variety and the substandard ones (see section 9.1 above for more
examples). To capture relatively comparable effects, one option in this
case could be a familiar countryside variety of Levantine Arabic, as in (35)
below:
. (35)
[Look at yourself now. Isnt it strange that you are thirty-three and you are
still like this?]
9.4 Conclusion
Being fundamentally a communicative exercise, the translation process
needs to involve a close consideration of all aspects of the text, in
particular those related to the use and user, that is, register and dialect.
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Language has many functions and takes different shapes according to the
situation in which it is used. Therefore, approaching a text laden with
certain variations of language, the translators progress will automatically
slow down in an attempt to cope with communicative constraints imposed
on them by such varieties. The present chapter has selectively explored,
with some illustrative examples, communicative features that translators
need to be alerted to in their actual act of translating. In particular, various
strategies for handling dialect- and register-related problems have been
investigated with hopes of bringing them into the consciousness of
practicing translators. The discussion also offers insights into further
investigations of communicative considerations in translation activity.
Together with other considerations, including linguistic, textual, pragmatic,
cultural, semiotic, and stylistic aspects (see other chapters in this book),
the translators work will definitely become an informed act.
CHAPTER TEN
CONCLUDING REMARKS
A key idea lying behind writing the present volume is to make available
for student translators, professional practitioners, and researchers in
translation studies a book that establishes a solid link between translation
theorizing/theories and the actual decision making in translation activity.
The goal is not to offer solutions but rather to engage in theory-based
translation argumentation through the examination and discussion of
mostly authentic translational data. The attempt to offer an in-depth
analysis of the theorypractice interface necessitates the choice of a
language pair where the different aspects of translation can be explored
with ease and insight. The choice of English and Arabic as the relevant
pair hardly needs any justification with English being an international
lingua franca and Arabic covering a huge geographical area extending
from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arab Gulf and from the south-eastern
Turkish borders to the Sudan, an area that assumes special importance in
international politics and economics. Apart from this, the assumption
underlying this work is that the theoretically-inspired applications
suggested throughout this book can arguably be relevant to translational
data belonging to other language pairs. Therefore, regardless of the
linguistic repertoire of the reader in general and the translation student,
practitioner, or specialist in particular, insights will be found to sharpen
translation awareness and competence at large.
Another main motivation for writing this book is to cater for the renewed
and booming interest in translation in the Arab World both at the practical
and academic levels. At the practical level, there are numerous translation
offices and agencies in every Arab country where the needs for translation
between English and Arabic are becoming greater as time passes by. The
translation product from this sector is often criticized for being of low
quality as a result of the absence of rules legalizing translation activity. At
the academic level, translation departments at the undergraduate and
postgraduate level proliferate at Arab universities with the growing need
for graduates to work in both the government and private sectors.
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Concluding Remarks
173
174
Chapter Ten
Concluding Remarks
175
176
Chapter Ten
REFERENCES
178
References
179
180
References
181
182
References
183
184
References
185
186
References
187
188
References
189
190
References
191
192
References
193
194
References
INDEX
196
Genre xi, 5, 15, 20-22, 23, 25, 30,
51, 54, 86, 91, 119, 132, 134,
137, 139, 141, 160, 168
Global strategy 14, 15, 16, 25, 26,
27, 31, 46
Grammar 10, 26, 40, 48, 62, 66,
139, 140, 180, 181, 182, 186,
190, 193
Gutt, E-A. 12, 28, 104, 185
Habitus 42, 43, 185, 193
Halliday, M. A. K. 10, 12, 63, 79,
81, 84, 155, 161, 162, 163, 165,
168, 188, 192
Hatim, B. and Mason, I. 11, 12, 15,
20, 23, 25, 30, 33, 38, 48, 79,
80, 104, 123, 124, 129, 132,
137, 155, 156
Hermans, T. 4, 34, 186
Hermeneutic theories 8
Holmes, J. 9-10, 157, 187
Holmess Map 9-10
Horace 2, 7, 14, 139, 173
House, J. 2, 12, 26, 165
Ideology xi, 15, 18, 24, 38-42
Idiom principle 66
Illocution(ary) 11, 104, 107, 108,
109, 110, 111, 112, 115, 124,
125, 126, 139, 175
Illusio 41-45
Illusion 25, 167, 169
Imitation (see Dryden) 5
Impersonalization 166
Implicature 11, 103, 104, 111-121,
126, 175
Inaccessibility 166
Informality 73, 95, 140, 166
Insider-outsider perspective 93102
Instructional texts 31
Interpretant 130, 134
Interpretive semiotics 128-131
Invisibility 12, 193
Jakobson, R. 48, 130, 188
Kress, G. 20, 188
Lefevere, A. x, 2, 38, 180, 189
Lexical repetition 80-83
Index
Linguistic considerations 48-78
Linguistics-informed theories 1011
Local strategy 86, 91, 140, 156
Luther, M. 3-4
Master discourse 15, 18-20
Maxim 35, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115,
116, 117, 118, 119, 121, 124
Medieval Arabic Translation 2-3
Metaphor 32, 94, 113, 114, 131,
135, 143
Metaphrase 5 (see Dryden)
Mode of discourse 168-169
Modulation xi, 10
Morphology xi, 51, 54-60, 139, 140
Muhammad Ali Pasha 7-9
Narrative (theory) 19
Newmark, P. 11, 16, 48, 76, 79, 190
Nida, E. 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 27, 92, 93,
139, 140, 190
Norm (theory) 33-38
Oblique translation 10, 11
Open principle 66
Overt translation 12
Paraphrase 5, 6, 7, 56, 59, 68, 73,
74, 75, 77, 98, 132 (see Dryden)
Participants 12, 122, 142, 153, 163,
164, 165, 166
Peirce 128-131, 134
Perlocution(ary) 11, 104, 124
Personalization 166
Phonological Features 51-54
Phraseological Features 73-78
Phraseology 53, 66
Pike, K. 93, 190
Politeness 94, 103, 104, 121-126,
166, 167, 175, 181, 184
Pragmatics xi, 11, 25, 103-127,
139, 141
Pragmatics-informed theories 11
Pre-renaissance 3-4
Presupposition 104-107, 127, 175
Purpose of translation 46, 173; see
Skopos
197
St. Jerome 2
Structural semiotics 128-131
Stylistic approach 141-153
Stylistics 139-154, 175
Superficial level 93, 146
Surface structure 10, 28
Syntax xi, 2, 26, 28, 51, 87, 139,
140
Tenor of discourse 165-168
Text (type/typology) xi, 1, 10, 13,
15, 29-33, 34, 37
Textual aspects 79-91
Textuality see textual aspects
Toury, G. 9, 10, 34, 35, 193
Translation brief 16
Translation principles 4
Transposition 10
Tyndale, W. 4-5
Tytler, A. F. 6-7
Venuti, L. 6, 7, 12, 15, 16, 139, 181,
187, 193
Vermeer, H. J. 30, 92, 193
Vinay, J. P. and Darbelnet, J. 10, 11,
193
Visibility 12
Word formation 54-60
Word-for-word 2, 3, 4, 7